Not a trademark any more?

Toot Toot Beep Beep by Emma Garcia

Toot Toot Beep Beep by Emma Garcia (Detail)

One of the biggest fears of any brand manager is that the brand-name becomes a generic term for the category. This has happened to Hoover, Tannoy, Escalator, Thermos, Zipper, Aspirin, and Heroin. (Heroin was trademarked by Bayer in 1898) Other brands are fighting it tooth and nail. BandAid and Xerox are just two firms who seem to police the use of their brand quite aggressively.

It is somewhat telling that the editor of this book didn't think that the word "jeep" was worthy of capitalization. Is Jeep headed down the road of becoming a generic term for any four-wheel drive vehicle? Fiat had better hope not. Jeep is one of the more valuable parts of the whole Chrysler organization.