Beyond Brand when it becomes a Verb

Remember the time when Colgate was synonymous to tooth-paste. My parents and teachers used to say that ‘colgate’ your teeth atleast twice a day. I recall few decades ago in India, every detergent was referred to as “Nirma”. Apple launched i-pad and it became a big instant hit that customers started referring tablet from other companies, say tab from Samsung as i-pad only. I think nothing can be a better complement for a company than using its brand as a verb by its customers, which sets a benchmark and make the brand self-advertising engine. We ‘Google’ but we don’t Bing. We Xerox but we don’t Polaroid. Can we convert a brand into ‘verb’ by advertisement and force potential customers to use it.  What happened to yahoo when several years ago it started a campaign asking people "Do you Yahoo?". It didn’t work and Yahoo had to contend with remaining noun only. However, a small start-up ‘whatsapp’ became synonymous to ‘text’ and went viral with a word of mouth. Today more than 800 million people don’t do ‘text’ but ‘whatsapp’ to their friends. Facebook valued its social capital not the physical assets at $19 billion because it had the potential of the verbification.

This happens when a new innovation disrupts the traditional market and becomes a sensation. Other examples in the Silicon Valley are the two-sided platform such as Uber. I no longer hire ‘cab’, I ‘uber’ to go to my work. Airbnb became a sensational online short term property rental service in less than a decade. We no longer ‘rent’ but ‘airbnb’ our homes. I don’t pay but ‘Venmo’ my dues to my friends. People ‘tweet’ the opinions and ‘fb’ the posts. Waoh! these products are beyond brands.

I see a shift from products to platforms qualifying for ‘verb’ with these recent offerings. Such platforms provide two sided markets with supplier on one side, consumer on another and a service provider in the centre. Focus is shifting from product centric approach to customer centric approach by providing a service central to user needs. Objective is not to increase sales but is about growing user base. When focus shifts to building social capital through the platform, users are encouraged to use such brand more often as ‘verbs’.

However, there is a flip side to it. companies are wary of becoming their brand name too generic to be (mis)used as verb. People could forget the brand itself impacting the trademark. Companies also fear brand to be strongly casted for a specific use. My thinking was validated when I saw these rules on https://www.google.com/permissions/trademark/rules.html

•     Use the trademark only as an adjective, never as a noun or verb, and never in the plural or possessive form.
•      Use the generic term for the product following the trademark, for example: GOOGLE search engine, Google search, GOOGLE web search.

Fear of companies as big as Google may be justifiable but it is an honour for a brand to be included in vocabulary and move beyond just a noun to action packed verb. If that's not the case, why did Microsoft hoped that people would "bing" a new restaurant or "bing" a new job?