History Main / StuckOnBandAidBrand

** The idea that they were told to by the state of Kentucky actually derives from a [[http://www.snopes.com/lost/kfc.asp joke article on snopes.com]] that was posted in a section named TROLL but was easy to take out of context and mistake for real. Snopes also [[http://www.snopes.com/horrors/food/kfc.asp points out]] that the part about not legally calling it chicken is an urban legend, but claims that avoiding the connotations of "fried" really was a genuine reason for the renaming (though only one of several).

* Sellotape in the UK and Scotch tape in North America, to the point where the BBC have finally ruled that ''BluePeter'' presenters no longer have to call the former "sticky tape" on-air.

* 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!"

* 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.
** Ad copy guidelines dictate that the full name of the PS3 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.
** This even seeps into the games themselves sometimes. In MetalGearSolid4 and the documentary extras for the {{Uncharted}} series, when somebody says 'Playstation 3' the subtitles always say 'Playstation 3 system'.
** 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 [[SureWhyNot most gamers used that phrase for it well before the system's release]]. ''The Videogame Style Guide'' insists that this term should ''not'' be used, contradicting both common usage and Nintendo's own style guide.
*** Not Nintendo Wii. Just Wii.
**** That said, not the DS. The NintendoDS.
*** Look in any instruction manual for any game for any older Nintendo system. You know that cross-shaped thing? That's not a D-pad, it's a +Control Pad. Note the plus sign. You don't insert a cartridge into your console, instead you insert a Game Pak into your Control Deck. (The latter is [[JustifiedTrope justified]], as Nintendo began this naming convention with the [[NintendoEntertainmentSystem NES]], at a time when [[TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983 most people didn't want anything to do with game consoles or cartridges]].) They've started lightening up on this recently though.
** That said, it is always a Wii Remote not a Wiimote.

* Stun guns are sometimes called "tasers", particularly in video games, even though Taser is a brand and a specific type of stun gun.
** For many people that is actually a distinction with a difference. "Stun Guns" fire the barbed zapping projectiles while "Tazers" have to be pressed against the intended target. You remember this because Stun Guns work like guns and Tazers work like (electric) razors.
*** In reality, however, it's the opposite. "TASER" originally was an acronym for "Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle."

* 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 Music/BarryManilow, who is the TropeMaker.

* 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 Music/BarryManilow.

**** This got weird when they started running Western commercials about Bayer aspirin, referring to it as just "aspiring". Most people were trying to figure out what's so good about ''this'' aspirin, when they've been getting theirs from the drug store for years and it works just fine.

* As for [=NesQuik=] itself, it was originally named Quik, and Nestlé renamed it as essentially a contraction of "Nestlé Quik". Nowadays the commercials refer to it as "[[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment Nestlé NesQuik]]".
** Apparently nobody mentioned that "[=NesQuik=]" sounds like something you get from [[Literature/NineteenEightyFour Miniplenty]]. Or else they didn't know that quasi-Orwellian branding is double-plus-ungood.
* An ad for ''Polaner All-Fruit'' featured rich people asking to "Pass the Polaner All-Fruit," around a table. When one of them asks (in a broad Texan cowboy [[AmericanAccents accent]]) "Could'ya please pass the jelly?" everyone present is shocked by his faux "faux-pas".

* LEGO would like to remind you that [[{{Lego}} "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.

* A Lampshaded InUniverse example: In ''{{The Truman Show}}'', the unwitting protagonist of the ShowWithinAShow further suspects the supposed reality he is living in when in the midst of a heated argument with his wife, she begins speaking in unnatural nonsequitur ad-speak, as characters on the show are obligated to do brief spiels accompanying product-placement.

* In ''{{The Truman Show}}'', the unwitting protagonist of the ShowWithinAShow further suspects the supposed reality he is living in when in the midst of a heated argument with his wife, she begins speaking in unnatural nonsequitur ad-speak, as characters on the show are obligated to do brief spiels accompanying product-placement.

* The old-school Kool-Aid commercials, where ''Kool-Aid Man'' (Oh Yeahhhhh!!) barges through a wall, typically ended with:

** 1920s? There's at least one usage of "Kodak" in this context (albeit with the capital) from ''1893'', in GilbertAndSullivan's ''Utopia Limited''. Granted, it may just be to fit the meter of the song, but still.

* Also annoying are the commercials for Totinos Pizza Rolls, where a bunch of hungry kids will refer to the snack exactly like that. "Hey, let's have Totinos Pizza Rolls." "I LOVE Totinos Pizza Rolls!" Somewhat justified, as children do occasionally use this trope in regular speech.

The real reason they do this? If a particular brand name becomes synonymous with the product it identifies, the company that makes it is in danger of a BrandNameTakeover, and they don't like that. You'll also notice that many of these products shun being called the generic product they're associated with: Miracle Whip isn't mayo [[hottip:*:though by federal guidelines, it truly isn't]], Dove isn't soap, Polaner All-Fruit isn't jelly...

* DCComics and MarvelComics famously hold a joint trademark on the terms "Super Hero" and "SUPER HEROES"[[hottip:™: note the space and capitalization]], 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.

* Parodied in ''ClerksTheAnimatedSeries'':

* Parodied in ''InvaderZim''. You remember how your elementary school fundraiser had those cheesy prizes for selling ''x'' products? Well, in Zim's one prize is apparently a box of [[AC:adhesive medical strips.]] It's not only dubbed over in an instructional video; it's dubbed over in an actual conversation.
* Lampshaded in ''TheSimpsons'', episode "A Tale of Two Springfields", in which Bart and friends repeatedly refer to a Frisbee (still a registered trademark of Wham-O) as a "novelty flying disc."

** SpongebobSquarepants 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''".

*** On the new Hawaii-50, they did, in fact, "bing" something. On a cell phone.

* Adobe tried to curtail the use of the Photoshop trademark as a verb, by sending out a press release saying, basically, you can't do that. Instead of "Photoshopping", they wanted you to say, "I edited the picture in Adobe® Photoshop® software." (Adding "version 7.0" at the end is optional.) Naturally, everybody MUST care [[http://www.adobe.com/misc/trade.html This is the page with their trademark guidelines]] -- with examples!