‘Kleenex Lawyers’ Educate Public On Correct Way To Refer To Tissues
The next time you’re sniffling at a scene in The Notebook, don’t ask your friends to grab you a Kleenex, but rather, a Kleenex brand tissue.
As part of its efforts to educate the public on the importance of trademark protection, the brand has come up with a new campaign, with its own “lawyers” patting customers on the back for referring to its product correctly.
Over the years, the term Kleenex has become ubiquitous with tissues.
Is it just us that get excited when someone uses our name correctly and keeps our trademark strong? Okay. Just us. pic.twitter.com/qarmqsBdwD
— Kleenex® Brand (@Kleenex) November 3, 2022
However, as Quartz explains, if a brand name becomes so common in the everyday lexicon that it turns into a generic term, the company behind it could lose its trademark value, a phenomenon known as “genericide.”
A key example of this occurred in 1921, when Bayer appeared in court over the rights to Aspirin, which had become the go-to word for pain medication. The pharmaceutical firm lost its trademark, causing “aspirin” to enter the public domain.
For now, Kleenex has yet to meet this fate officially, though it’s keenly aware it’s on a slippery slope to genericide, together with other familiar brands like Band-Aid, Xerox, Velcro, Post-it, Polaroid, and even Zoom.
So remember, the next time you’re looking for tissues to stop a cold, it’s Kleenex brand tissues, and not just Kleenex.
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[via Quartz and Kleenex Brand, cover image via Kleenex Brand]
