Brands that entered our household!

Brands today have become so popular that they are an integral part of our lives. Not only have these brands become household names but they are also being increasingly used interchangeably in routine language, often as “common nouns”.

Johnson & Johnson manufactured gauze and adhesive tape separately until Earle Dickson decided to combine them to create Band-Aids probably for his accident-prone wife; necessity being the mother of all inventions ;)

Since then the word “Band-Aid” has been used both generically and generously by consumers everywhere even though it cannot be used by the competitors of the brand.

“Xerox has been trying to stop people from calling photocopying as “xeroxing” for years. In fact for many years the Xerox Company ran a campaign asking people to not use the name “Xerox” as a verb when the generic term “photo copy” was the intended meaning. Verbifying” (which is a verbified word in itself) a brand or product has been a popular practice with us and many a brand names have become daily usage names today so much so that sometimes for example even when there is only an ‘All Out’ or a ‘Mortein’ mosquito repellent at home yet the mothers ask the kids to switch on a “Good Knight” to fend off the mosquitos.

To be fair Good Knight shouldn’t technically be used as a verb but then “Switch on that mosquito repellent diffusing machine!” is probably too hard to say under incessant stress and duress of blood thirsty mosquitos playing their buzzing symphony in ones ears.

Talking of mosquito repellents ‘Odomos’ brand has been a synonym of a mosquito repellent cream since my childhood days just like Maggi has been a synonym of “my favourite Chinese noodle snack” or Colgate has been to a “toothpaste”.

Do you know, Microsoft suggests that unless you are using their software, your PowerPoint is only a “presentation and graphics program.”

While all of the above stands to some logic there are also those people who deliberately use the brand names as a show off of the bucks dad makes at work. Such people phrase very amusing sentences; somewhat like this- “Oh! I forgot my iPhone charger” or “Hey! Have you seen my Raybans!” (Yes, I did see a pair of shades over there… just didn’t notice that they were Raybans. Thanks for telling…your market share just went up two notches). Just remember that an expensive coffin does not decrease the deceased’s chances of going to hell… but being blatantly boast full surely increases them!

Lastly, many other words we use every day, like Zippers, Frisbee, Jeep, Vaseline, Jacuzzi and Escalators, were once brand names. Don’t believe me…just Google it!!

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