Brandverbing is Retarded?

I guess as a few requirements of me using a brandverb: the brand itself would have to roll off the tongue, not an acronym or complicated word. The product/service for the brand would have to be something that I use. The main product/service would have to be easily identifiable so that if I used the brandverb people would know what I’m talking about. It couldn’t already clash with another brandverb. Others would have to be using the brandverb first - because I’m a sheep, not a trendsetter .

How to get that first group of influential people to start using your brand as a verb? I don’t know, but I don’t think you could rush it as you need the product/service to be recognizable and closely attached to the brand. Maybe if you had demos/adverts of the product with the brandverb used to describe what they are doing that would start the ball rolling. You’d need to widespread the brand name quickly I’d imagine, you also need to get people using the product/service. I also think it would be easier if you had a unique/new product or you were replacing a complicated verb with a simpler brand verb such as photocopy->xerox. People are probably going to start using the brandverb if they like your product/service too, so maybe you need to create some champions for your product by offering some benefits or something. Having a community surrounding your product is probably essential too - you could attract them either through necessity or by being cool. Google is cool, xeroxing isn’t, but I guess because every office had a xerox the community was sort of forced onto it and it became slang.

I guess you have to try and get to the root of why someone would use a brand verb instead of the verb itself and that might get into some psychological stuff. My take is either I’m using a brandverb because: I am lazy and its easier to communicate; I like the product/service and want to affiliate myself with it and tell people about it; I want to belong to the group of people that use the brandverb already. Random thoughts on the subject, enjoy

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The problem with becomming a “brandverb” is that any problems your competitors may have will automatically be associated with your brand.

“My Hoover’s crap” - actually it’s a dyson.
“My Thermos breaks to easily” - it’s a cheap supermarket own brand vacuum flask.
“I’ve Googled for ages and still can’t find the web page” - because you’re using Ask.

“BrandVerb” like a vanity wank, may make you happy for the short term, but in the end you’ll feel a little bit sad and empty…

Copyblogger, Seoblackhat, you guys chose to brand yourselves around already existing symbolic systems.

You Quad however push the QuadsZilla brand which carries its own memorable logo/image and achieves instant recognition. Furtthermore, you managed to stop blogging about BH exploits and reinvented your blog as a Marketing-thought provoking resource-evolving linkbait.

It’s interesting to see how the two biggest search players chose to transit the branding road instead of the product/service one.

Yahoo and Google. Not Searchmaster, Searchweb, Searchall, Finditall.

Let’s say Google wasn’t called Google but instead ‘Searchmaster’. Do you think it would be dominating the world right now? Would kids say “Im going to searchmaster tomorrow this shit coz I can’t be arsed listening to my teacher now”

Would people say “Im going to Freevideoforall that clip of my dog chasing his own tail coz its so funny” if Freevideoforall was the name of You Tube? About two years ago Atomfilms was a lot bigger then You Tube. Ok let’s try that “Im going to Atomfilms that clip of my dog chasing his own tail coz its so funny”… nah.

The problem with us spammers is that we are just after the traffic. Thus we chase type in traffic, keyword rich urls, etc. Shoemoney knew better than that. Of course Quads you are a lot more than an SEO spammer. Build a brand, turn your users into ambassadors and you won’t need to chase the traffic.

How can you turn your users into ambassadors? Not making them look stupid when they try to brandverb you is a good start.

I really would hate to turn this into a flame war gh0stb0t, but volatilegx is right, and I was going to actually point that out when I first read the post, but I had some work to do. Kleenex didn’t technically lose the trademark, but people say pick up some Kleenex, and still get the non name branded version, people also say they are going to Xerox stuff off when they aren’t using Xerox, and they also say buy a Jacuzzi when it isn’t the actual brand Jacuzzi. It isn’t officially lost because people cannot use the name on the packaging, but it is lost in the minds of the consumers. I think I brought up a point that Google didn’t want people to say they can Google something on Yahoo!… I don’t remember how it went though.

matt, it’s right here:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/do-you-google.html

It’s actually a joke.

Remember this funny cartoon about using the word “google”:
http://derekyu.com/?p=55