Hand me an Aspirin, my brand just committed genericide

Superb brand promotion and category dominance can actually lead to your brand being declared "generic".

While this type of success is unlikely for most brands, Trampoline, Escalator, Thermos and Aspirin learned the hard way that genericide is a very real thing.

Here's a short article that describes how marketers can avoid the genericide trap for their brands.

In short, be ready to legally defend the misuse of your brand names, run periodic campaigns to counteract any consumer confusion and manage the marketing mix to avoid possible generic attachment of the brand name to the broader category.

In my next post we'll take a look at a powerful brand making the right moves to avoid genericide.

Do you really want brand awareness?

Brand awareness is when people recognize your brand as yours. This does not necessarily mean they prefer your brand (brand preference), attach a high value to, or associate any superior attributes to your brand. It just means they recognize your brand and can identify it under different conditions.

If you are trying to establish or build your brand then, you must stop and ask yourself, "Do I want to build high brand awareness or do I want something more?"

What is brand equity?

Brand Equity is the sum total of all the different values people attach to the brand, or the holistic value of the brand to its owner as a corporate asset. Brand equity can include: the monetary value or the amount of additional income expected from a branded product over and above what might be expected from an identical, but unbranded product; the intangible value associated with the product that can not be accounted for by price or features; and the perceived quality attributed to the product independent of its physical features.

A brand is nearly worthless unless it enjoys some equity in the marketplace. Without brand equity, you simply have a commodity product.

Brand equity is completely different from brand awareness.

Hmm. I guess you know what post will come next...