Remember
the time when Colgate was synonymous to tooth-paste. My parents and
teachers used to say that ‘colgate’ your teeth atleast twice a day. I recall few
decades ago in India, every detergent was referred to as “Nirma”. Apple
launched i-pad and it became a big instant hit that customers started referring
tablet from other companies, say tab from Samsung as i-pad only. I think
nothing can be a better complement for a company than using its brand as a verb
by its customers, which sets a benchmark and make the brand self-advertising
engine. We ‘Google’ but we don’t
Bing. We Xerox but we don’t Polaroid. Can we convert a brand into ‘verb’
by advertisement and force potential customers to use it. What happened to yahoo when several years ago it started a campaign
asking people "Do you Yahoo?". It didn’t work and Yahoo had to
contend with remaining noun only. However, a small start-up ‘whatsapp’ became
synonymous to ‘text’ and went viral with a word of mouth. Today more than 800
million people don’t do ‘text’ but ‘whatsapp’ to their friends. Facebook valued
its social capital not the physical assets at $19 billion because it had the
potential of the verbification.
This
happens when a new innovation disrupts the traditional market and becomes a
sensation. Other examples in the Silicon
Valley are the two-sided platform such as Uber. I no longer hire ‘cab’, I ‘uber’
to go to my work. Airbnb became a sensational online short term property rental
service in less than a decade. We no longer ‘rent’ but ‘airbnb’ our homes. I
don’t pay but ‘Venmo’ my dues to my friends. People ‘tweet’ the opinions and ‘fb’
the posts. Waoh! these products are beyond brands.
I see a shift from products to platforms qualifying
for ‘verb’ with these recent offerings. Such platforms provide two sided
markets with supplier on one side, consumer on another and a service provider
in the centre. Focus is shifting from product centric approach to customer
centric approach by providing a service central to user needs. Objective is not
to increase sales but is about growing user base. When focus shifts to building
social capital through the platform, users are encouraged to use such brand
more often as ‘verbs’.
However, there is a flip side to it. companies
are wary of becoming their brand name too generic to be (mis)used as verb. People
could forget the brand itself impacting the trademark. Companies also fear
brand to be strongly casted for a specific use. My thinking was validated when
I saw these rules on https://www.google.com/permissions/trademark/rules.html
·
Use the
trademark only as an adjective, never as a noun or verb, and never in the
plural or possessive form.
·
Use the
generic term for the product following the trademark, for example: GOOGLE
search engine, Google search, GOOGLE web search.
Fear of companies
as big as Google may be justifiable but it is an honour for a brand to be
included in vocabulary and move beyond just a noun to action packed verb. If that's not the case, why did Microsoft hoped that people would "bing" a new restaurant or "bing" a new job?
