Hello,
Looking to increase my vocabulary by one word today, probably with the help of the marketing gurus on here.
I need a word which means a ‘default brand/choice’ if that makes sense.
For example if someone said name a breakfast cereal maker I’m guessing 90-odd percent of peeps would say kellogs, name a baked bean a similar proportion would say Heinz. What is the correct term for brands like these? I’m after something more than ‘market leader’ something people automatically think of when they think of that thing, maybe like Hoover or Biro, Lemsip maybe. Does that make sense?
Cheers,
Andy H

de facto

Generic

Not sure if its something you’d get in a single word (although I’m sure the Germans have one), but you might describe ‘Hoover’ as a ‘synonymous brand’ as ‘Hoover’ has become a synonym for vacuum cleaner, ‘iPod’ is a synonym for MP3 player.

Antonomasia seems to cover it too.

Dominant.

It’s a generic trademark.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark

Though if you want one word, “metonym” is pretty close.

Hoover
Band-aid
Kleenex
Mars bar (at least in our house)
Coke
Q-tip
Milton
Tupperware
Google

That sort of thing you mean?

^ from Cougar’s link I quite like “the risk of genericide”

Hah, that’s great. I didn’t actually read the article.

I’m afraid I don’t actually know what Antonomasia means 😳

.Thanks for trying guys, you are getting close, but probably not quite close enough.
I’ll try to explain better. In the bike world (or on here at least) someones says I need a full-suss for a bit of all-day riding, someone says Orange 5, thread closed. Just something which is the obvious choice if you see what I mean, there must be a name for those items (if not the marketing people should invent one)
Probably didn’t explain it well first time.
.
Just googled Antonomasia, not quite that either.

that’s not the same thing as hoover = vacuum cleaner.

in the Orange 5/Conti Vert Pros/Inbred post thing it’s more of a Meme.

Standard?

You’re talking, I think, about the default choice or answer

Thinkinginthebox

Ubiquitous?

paradigm? Prob not really but I wanted to contribute 😎

Default choice is a good answer. Obvious really, but I didn’t think of it for some reason, thanks IHN.
Meme is interesting, might see if I can work that in somewhere too…
And yes, I’m sure the Germans do have a (very long!) word for it.

andrewh – Member
Default choice is a good answer. Obvious really, but I didn’t think of it for some reason, thanks IHN.

andrewh – Member
Hello,
Looking to increase my vocabulary by one word today, probably with the help of the marketing gurus on here.
I need a word which means a ‘default brand/choice‘ if that makes sense.

Errr…… 😉

You said default choice in your OP just about.

Archetypal / archetype is another synonym you could put into the thesaurus for the sort of thing you’re labouring to describe.

Canonical.

Habituated.

preeminent

Am I just having a blonde day? Almost had the answer and never noticed it!
Habituated is fairly good too.
And thanks for the effort Al, but no.

a bit American but how about go-to?

a bit American but how about go-to?

OUT!

supersaiyan – Member
a bit American but how about go-to?

Other than being an Americanism that is bang-on, exactly what I was looking for 😀
Now, how do we say that in English?

My favourite example of a brand name which went on to define the product is petrol

*cries*

Sorry IHN. If you could translate it to an English equivalent I would be delighted to hear from you, I would rather avoid an Americanism too if I can, but it does get the meaning I want absolutely right.
.
supersaiyan, you are a (flawed) genius.

I, and others, did – default, ubiquitous, habitual have all been mentioned

Or you could use universal, customary, consistent, usual, popular…

^deeply

🙂

FTW 8) 😆

eg Orange 5 FTW
Hoover FTW

And you can just be quiet…

Err… What does FTW stand for?

Found The Word

flibber tee woowoo

Err… What does FTW stand for?

For The Win.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/for_the_win

Yeah, For The Win.

Said tongue-in-cheek as it’s an internet term really, regularly used on here 😉

Probably not that then. I like wwaswas’s answer, that would be approriate.