The New Speedo and Kleenex

This article is from http://www.walkinthewords.blogspot.com/

The June 30th Newsweek had an article about Speedo's LZR suit. If you have not heard about it yet, it is the suit that is helping swimmers break a multitude of records. The article notes that Speedo is the number 1 swim brand in the world and reinforces this statistic by quoting analyst Marshal Cohen, "Speedo is the Kleenex of swimwear." I really got a kick out of seeing this quote as it fit right in with my previous post about brand name genericide (genericide being the process by which a trademarked or brand name becomes a generic name for the product category). While Kleenex was not on the list in my original post, a reader commented that it should have been and I fully agree. And certainly Speedo should be added to the list as the generic name for competitive swimwear and tank suits (which I grew up calling banana hammocks, ha ha).