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{{examples}}
==
* One particularly jarring example in the movie ''[[Cabin Fever (film)|Cabin Fever]]''; on their way to the title cabin, [[James DeBello]]'s character says he left his "''Mott's'' apple juice" back at the general store. Much like the [[Saturday Night Live|cowbell]] in [[Blue Öyster Cult]]'s "Don't Fear The Reaper", once you notice it, you can't un-notice it.
▲=== Tabletop Games ===
* The ''[[Paranoia]]'' [[Tabletop RPG]] has this in universe, with B3. Officially, you are required to refer to "Bouncy Bubble Beverage Tee Emm Brand Beverage". Even in termination-happy Alpha Complex, shortening that is normal.
* Part of a running [[Expospeak Gag]] in ''[[Portal (series)|Portal]]''. Aperture Science tends to give everything they produce a convoluted title preceded by their own name, which culminates in this:▼
{{quote|'''GLadOS''': Did you just toss the Aperture Science [[Buffy-Speak|Thing We Don't Know What It Does]] into the Aperture Science Emergency Intelligence Incinerator?}}▼
* Parodied in ''[[Clerks the Animated Series]]'':
{{quote|'''Injured Customer:''' Mary, Mother of God! I cut my hand on a rubber band! Do you sell Band-Aids?
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** [[SpongeBob SquarePants]] has played with a "small plastic disk that you throw". Looking for a less unwieldy name, they come up with a "small plastic disk that you ''toss''".
▲=== [[Video Games]] ===
▲* Part of a running [[Expospeak Gag]] in ''[[Portal (series)|Portal]]''. Aperture Science tends to give everything they produce a convoluted title preceded by their own name, which culminates in this:
▲{{quote|'''GLadOS''': Did you just toss the Aperture Science [[Buffy-Speak|Thing We Don't Know What It Does]] into the Aperture Science Emergency Intelligence Incinerator?}}
▲== Real-Life Examples ==
=== Clothing Products ===
* Americans
* Although Onesies is a trademark of Gerber, it has become a generic term (at least, in America) for the little shirt-thingies worn by babies. Gerber was/is not pleased.
=== Computer and Electronic Products ===
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** '''''Always capitalize and use trademarks in their correct form.''' CORRECT: The image was enhanced with Adobe® Photoshop® Elements software. INCORRECT: The image was photoshopped. INCORRECT: The image was Photoshopped. INCORRECT: The image was Adobe® Photoshopped.''
** A lot of people now use "photochopped" or "[[Memetic Mutation|photoshooped]]". (Uh-uh. You can't name it confusingly similar.)
** Finally all the way down to "[[Memetic Mutation|shopped]]", because who has time to type
** The part about Adobe® AIR® took it to dangerous levels: You can't use "AIR" anywhere in the title of your application, your company/trade dba name, your domain name, in your service name, or if it is related to Adobe® AIR® software (unless, of course, you're Adobe.)
* See also [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3006486.stm "Googling"], meaning "Look up on a search engine, Google or not."
** Honestly, though, who the hell uses anything but '''Google® Brand Search Engine'''?
** Parodied savagely by Google during [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/different-kind-of-company-name.html 2010 April Fools].
*** Parodying themselves as well, as older Google blog posts also had this lecture.
** ''New Scientist'' magazine, as it's in print, had to get around this, so every time they refer to Google they say "a famous web search engine" or "FWSE" for short.
** [https://web.archive.org/web/20110109235257/http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1915736 "Google it with Bing"]. Even Microsoft employees aren't afraid to use this joke in public (in mild rebellion against the company line to, of course, promote Bing for searching... er, ''[[Insistent Terminology|decisioning]]'' where possible). No doubt Microsoft would be overjoyed if people started talking about "binging" things ([[Binge Montage|when pronounced properly, of course]]).
*** On the new Hawaii-50, they did, in fact, "bing" something. On a cell phone.
* Commercials for Helio mobile products go so far as to have people come to blows or suffer a [[Karmic Death]] if they dare refer to their devices as a "phone". One of those commercials also had a [[Discriminate and Switch]] when the daughter brings home a man of a different race and doesn't care about the very offensive things her parents say, but she does get upset over their calling his Helio a phone.
* Odd inversion: Apple, Microsoft, and various other companies are all (for different reasons) actively trying to associate the term "PC" with "a desktop computer that's not made by Apple". The truth is that "PC" stands for "Personal Computer" and can thus refer to all desktop computers intended for personal use, including
** Of course, it just gets worse when people try to use "computer" as a generic word to refer to ''both'' Apple-made computers and "other" computers, not realizing that they're stepping back to a much broader level than they anticipate.
** Then there's Linux, which runs on PCs, Macs, Suns, or, according to Internet legend, dead badgers. There's no such thing as a "Linux" computer per se, but some PC makers such as System76 treat explicit support for Linux as a selling point.
*** Ahem, that's "GNU/Linux", as Linux itself is just a kernel. Richard M. Stallman of the Free Software Foundation is quick to correct people who fail to mention the GNU project (which [[Recursive Acronym|stands for "GNU's Not UNIX"]]). GNU produced the libraries and low-level tools that Linux-based PC and server operating environments depend on. Stallman's [[Insistent Terminology]] is a running joke in the Linux community, but the term does help distinguish these GNU/Linux systems from Linux in Android and embedded devices, which don't run a GNU environment.
** And this use of "PC" to refer to a specific platform is something of a holdover from when most computers based on Intel x86 architecture (on which MS-DOS and Windows were designed to run) were properly called "IBM PC-Compatible".
*** Originally
*** Back in the 80s (when IBM-type PCs were relatively common as home computers but by no means the ubiquitous choice they later became) people would often refer to one as "an IBM-compatible".
**** Besides, the current Mac is effectively a PC with some architecture changes; that explains the success of the "hackintosh" versions of Mac OS X (running it on non-Apple hardware).
* Making a photocopy of something will often be called "xeroxing" it in the popular lexicon. Xerox is but only one company that makes photocopiers. Every few years, Xerox Corp. [https://web.archive.org/web/20140510121904/http://www.brandng.com/marketing/2010/05/xerox-begs-movie-execs-to-zip-it-about-xeroxing.html runs campaigns] to clarify that Xerox is not a verb.
=== Food Products ===
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* This upbeat [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRESIYTRZzU commercial] for M&M's carefully adds a "chocolate candies" to the first and last times the product's name is mentioned. While the first shout-out is worked into the song, the second one is done as a voiceover that otherwise has no rhyme or reason.
▲=== Health & Beauty Products ===
* Adding unspeakable insult to injury, the original trope-naming "Stuck On Me" Band-Aid without Brand [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUY8cchr8jk commercial] had even earned a Clio Award (comparable to an Oscar in the advertising world), including a shared credit for the song's composer [[Barry Manilow]].
** In Britain, "plaster" ([[We All Live in America|Band-Aid]]) is used. However, "plaster" isn't a brand name in itself (the closest to "plaster" is the brand Elastoplast).
* Make sure you use Bayer Aspirin if you're about to have a heart attack, it'll save your life. Presumably if you can only find other aspirin, it sucks to be you.
** This only applies in the US, UK, and France, where Bayer lost the trademark on "Aspirin" after World War I. In the rest of the world the generic name is "acetylsalicylic acid" (or "ASA").
*** Or, in Poland, "*pirin". There's "Polopirin", "Etopirin", "Coffepirin" (with caffeine) and "Calcipirin" (with Calcium, apparently for cold).
*** Or, in Russia, it is simply aspirin, since the old Soviet command economy didn't care about capitalist laws and customs and just produced aspirin without asking permission.
* One of the Aussie brand shampoos has the typical "we recommend following with Aussie <enter variety here> Conditioner" in its directions, but then adds "[[Lampshade Hanging|but we would say that, wouldn't we]]?" to it.
* There is a habit, especially in urban communities, of calling all diapers "Pampers".
* In several Latinamerican countries, all sanitary napkins are called "Modess" or "Kotex", after the brands that popularized the product. It becames weird when the brands themselves doesn't exist anymore in some of those markets but the name remain.
=== Mass Media ===
* [[DC Comics]] and [[Marvel Comics]] famously hold a joint trademark on the terms "Super Hero" and "SUPER HEROES",<ref>note the space and capitalization</ref> so that in practice no other facilities are allowed to use the term to advertise (or similarly title their products) in related situations. Legally, they own bupkis except lawyers. They "bought" the word from Mego Toys. But they're both so sue-happy that no-one dares (or can afford to) challenge them.
* The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) [http://www.oscars.org/legal/index.html would like to remind you] that Academy Award® and Oscar® are both registered trademarks. Although you can hear someone thanking "The Academy" for an award, they never say ''what'' academy or call it an "[[Academy Award]]", unless the AMPAS has given permission.
=== Sports ===
* If you like association football (soccer in the US), please be reminded that there isn't a world championship. You have to call it "FIFA World Cup™."
* The [[Super Bowl]] is a registered trademark of the National Football League. Any rebroadcast, retransmission, or other use of this term without the express written consent of the NFL is prohibited. Which is why advertisers who want to hawk Super Bowl-related products without actually paying the NFL for the right to use the words will often euphemistically refer to something like "the big game," or "getting ready for Sunday," and trust the listener to connect the dots. And any organization or business that wants to host a Super Bowl party had better not call it a Super Bowl party unless they want the pants sued off them, even if it's a free event hosted by a non-profit organization like a local community [https://web.archive.org/web/20130113043625/http://www.copyrightcommunity.com/avoid-being-tackled-by-super-bowl-copyright-infringement church].
** This is the primary reason for the proliferation of the "Superb Owl" meme in the 2010s.
* American sports fans often refer to the semifinals of any championship tournament as the Final Four, thanks to the high popularity of college basketball. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is quite firm about reminding fans, media outlets, and advertisers that Final Four® is a registered trademark in the United States, and may ONLY be used (with permission) to refer to the semi-finals of the NCAA's own postseason championship tournaments.
** Also in relation to the NCAA's championship tournaments, the terms Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight are likewise trademarked in the United States, but not solely by the NCAA. Elite Eight® is jointly owned by the NCAA and the Illinois High School Association. Sweet Sixteen® is owned by the Kentucky High School Athletic Association for its championships, and it licenses the term to the NCAA. Officially neither term can be used for any other tournament or competition in the United States. Unofficially, sports fans still make generic use of both terms, though not nearly to the extent that they do with Final Four.
▲=== Toys & Video Game Products ===
* LEGO would like to remind you that "[[LEGO]]" must always be capitalized and works only as an adjective for their products, e.g. "LEGO bricks." An individual block is not "a Lego." The tiny LEGO people are called minifig.
** This seems to be more of an American thing that doesn't get used so much in the UK. However, in Germany it's common to call them ''Legos'' (though the probably company-approved ''Legosteine'' - ''LEGO bricks'' - is in use as well)
*** [https://web.archive.org/web/20130605075419/http://cdn2.holytaco.com/wp-content/uploads/images/2010/10/shelley-victor.frankenstein.and_.monster.jpg Legostein?]
* Video game companies deal with this trope all the time, as the most popular system often becomes a synonym for video gaming itself. It's still common to hear people (mostly non-gamers who don't know anything about video games and systems) to say that they are "playing Atari" or "playing Nintendo" even though these companies obviously have more than one system.
** In Australia, the non-hardcore gamers among us don't play with our "[[PlayStation]]/ -2/ -3" or "Wii/GCN/N64/SNES/Game Boy/NES". We play with our "Sony" or "Nintendo". Slowly dying out as gaming becomes more ubiquitous, however.
** A 1990 poster from Nintendo describes preferred phrasing with the headline "[https://www.kotaku.com.au/2014/07/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-nintendo/ There's no such thing as a Nintendo.]"
** The Sony [[PlayStation]] would often be referred to as the "[[PlayStation]] Game Console" in commercials for their games.▼
** Ad copy guidelines dictate that the full name of the [[PlayStation 3]] is "[[PlayStation]]®3 computer entertainment system" and the Xbox 360 is "Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft." It leads to some... unwieldy marketing sentences.
** Companies also get rather specific when it comes to the names of their individual components. You don't use a controller with a PlayStation console, you use a DualShock or a SixAxis; and it's not just a memory card, it's a Memory Card (8MB) (for [[PlayStation]]®2).
** That said, one exception - Nintendo decided to just call the analog attachment to the Wii Remote "the Nunchuk" because [[
*** Not Nintendo Wii. Just Wii.
**** That said, not the DS. The [[Nintendo DS]]. Don't want it confused with any other [[DS]], after all.
* [[Transformers]] brand action figures from Hasbro don't transform; they ''convert''. Seriously. There is an official edict from Hasbro [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Trademark#Genericized_trademarks regarding printed materials]; toy packaging, advertising materials, etc. Transformers-brand action figures from Hasbro "convert" or "morph" or "change" between forms. Why, if the mere act of converting from one form to another was all it took to be a "transformer," then by gum, the term would become meaningless and applicable to any old space fantasy robot that can change between multiple configurations!
* For a while, Americans would generally refer to any cheat device as a ''[[Game Shark]]'', unless they specifically meant a Game Genie. Later, that vanished, with AR (for Action Replay) being the new generic term. Gameshark has roots in the more general use of the term "shark" to refer to cheaters (card shark, etc), but AR was pure genericization.
* Intel's latest campaign is particularly [[Egregious]]: Intel ''employees'' are talking about "Intel [X]" products.
* UK [[Game Shows]] will ALWAYS refer to the [[
** The BBC aren't allowed to advertise, so they have to avoid brand names wherever possible. Other channels will only advertise when they're specifically being paid to do so—if they set up the competition themselves rather than being given the prize by the makers as a marketing exercise, it won't be named.
** Also overt product placement was technically illegal on British-made TV in general until Ofcom (the regulatory body) relaxed the rules somewhat in 2011, meaning even if it was a paid for plug naming the product directly could land the program makers in trouble.
* At least a few years ago, every single fashion doll was a Barbie doll, regardless of whether or not it was made by Mattel. Just so long as it could wear the same clothes as a Barbie, it was a Barbie.
▲* The Sony [[PlayStation]] would often be referred to as the "[[PlayStation]] Game Console" in commercials for their games.
=== Other Products ===
* Federal Express changed its name to FedEx, and even stated in the commercial that announced the change that it was because "that's what you call us anyway".
** If asked if a customer can "Mail" a package, FedEx and UPS will say that they don't "Mail", but you can "Ship" your package. You can only send "Mail" through the United States Postal Service, Canada Post, etc. (This is not really a branding issue; US and Canadian law prohibits anyone from competing with the Postal Service / Post Office to provide mail delivery, because otherwise the USPS / Canada Post would be out of business. FedEx and UPS have to pretend to be in the totally different business of express parcel delivery.)
* A postcode for a non-US address is never called a "ZIP code". As ZIP®, ZIP+4® and "Zone Improvement Program"® are former USPS trademarks, postal administrations in other countries used other, generic terms or regional variants. The trademarks are now defunct, but the generic "postal code" or "postcode" stuck. (Except in the Philippines)
* The word "cellophane"
* Eastman-Kodak's efforts in the early part of the 20th century to popularize its product name, with such slogans as "Take a Kodak with you", were very nearly too successful: by the 1920s people were using "kodak", with no capital, as a synonym for "snapshot". (A character in Sinclair Lewis's 1937 novel ''It Can't Happen Here'' puts "a kodak album" in her suitcase.) The company had to move swiftly, with the advertising slogan "If it isn't an Eastman, it isn't a Kodak!"
** 1920s? There's at least one usage of "Kodak" in this context (albeit with the capital) from ''1893'', in [[Gilbert and Sullivan]]'s ''Utopia Limited''. Granted, it may just be to fit the meter of the song, but still.
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*** And then Eastman Kodak [[Irony|used "Kodachrome" in a commercial]] back in [[The Seventies]].
** The song "Give Me Everything" has the lines "Me not working hard?/ Yeah, right! Picture that with a Kodak/ Or, better yet, go to Times Square/ Take a picture of me with a Kodak."
* The National Association of Realtors takes pains to inform people that the term "
** Their radio ad suffers from a bit of grammar trouble that may lead to some confusion, saying "Only Realtors are members of The National Association of Realtors." What they meant was "Only members of The National Association of Realtors can call themselves Realtors." What they said was, "No one in The National Association of Realtors is not a realtor."
* People in North America typically refer to plastic wrap/cling film as "Saran wrap," even when the person they're talking to refers to it in the proper generic.
** Similarly, in Australia, many people refer to it as "Glad wrap".
** But not in the UK, where it's generally known by the generic term "cling film".
* A coin-operated laundry facility is a "laundrette" in English but a "laundromat" in America; the latter term is an expired Westinghouse® trademark which originally referred to a specific brand or manufacturer of automatic laundry machine. Most individual local businesses still avoid the Laundromat® trademark in favour of "coin wash" or other generics, even though Westinghouse® is now effectively out of the appliance business and merely a skeleton of its former self.
* Stun guns are sometimes called "tasers", particularly in video games, even though Taser is a brand (Thomas A. Smith Electric Rifle) and a specific type of stun gun.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:This Index Is Highly Improbable]]▼
[[Category:Advertising Tropes]]▼
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
▲[[Category:Advertising Tropes]]
▲[[Category:This Index Is Highly Improbable]]
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