'Genericide:' Learn how too much brand awareness can hurt a company's trademark

'Dilution' is any use of a trademark that weakens its distinctiveness

Unlike trademark infringement that hinges on the likelihood of confusing customers, trademark dilution is an illegal practice that threatens the distinctiveness of a trademark. In the US, famous brands like Nike and Google have a right to protection from dilution.

Frisbee, Jet Ski, and Dumpster—explore a list of words you might not realize are trademarked

Many products that have become household names started out as first-of-a-kind items. As those products grew in popularity, the brand name became the default name for the product.

Trademarks are a form of consumer protection

Trademarks help brands distinguish their products from competitors, but they also give consumers clarity around the product they are buying and where it comes from. Distinguishable names help prevent consumer confusion and maintain a consumer's ability to choose their preferred product and brand.

The value of a trademark is just one element of brand valuation

Brand valuations give companies an idea of how valuable assets, like logos, are to the company and can help determine how much money branding departments should receive. Typically, brand valuations are a compilation of brand awareness metrics, like a consumer's willingness to pay, the value of a trademark, and the company's market position.

Company names you may have been mispronouncing

Global company names often get Americanized or anglicized to the point where they’re unrecognizable. Here's a helpful explainer on how to say a dozen of them, from Adidas to Huawei.

Taylor Swift owns more than 300 trademarks—a strategic way she protects her brand

Taylor Swift holds trademarks ranging from her album titles and song lyrics to the names of her cats. While the sheer amount of trademarks may seem excessive, it's one way Taylor Swift can protect the integrity of her brand and make sure everything that's branded as Taylor Swift actually comes from her.

How big brands keep your loyalty

We perceive ourselves as rational decision-makers—but research about our consumption habits suggest we are easily played by clever marketing. Here's how big brands design their branding to keep you coming back.

Exclusionary ads can help win over customers, some marketers argue

Slogans like "if you don't like dark roast, this coffee isn't for you," also known as "dissuasive framing," can entice specific groups of customers, some marketers say. The shift comes from the perceived authenticity of a company admitting that a product is not perfect for everyone.

Nike is one of the world’s most recognizable brands

People recognize the Nike “swoosh” brand logo all over the world. The simplicity of the logo and the short, snappy name of the company are largely responsible for the brand’s wide-sweeping visibility.

Network effects are the economic term for a good or service's popularity

When goods or services become especially popular, firms that provide that good or service become dominant in the market—which can ultimately lead to a monopoly.

Fame can trigger addictive, drug-like highs in the brain

Differences in the type of fame, such as movie stardom, sports, and internet virality, can produce varying degrees of dependence on individuals based on their age and background. Some individuals—particularly children—can develop drug-seeking behavior as they pursue continuous dopamine spikes if they lack an existing sense of fulfillment from elsewhere.

The 'dupe' economy is fueled by the youthful thrill of thrift

Historically, you don't want people to know you have a knock-off luxury item. But today's younger generations are embracing the "dupe" economy, an open celebration of luxury knock-off items where consumers are proud to pay less for something roughly equivalent to premium brand offerings.

GMOs sound scary, but you eat them every day

Why are GMOs bad? They aren’t. We’ve been eating them for decades with no ill effects, which makes sense, because a genetically modified organism is simply an organism, like every other organism, produces hundreds of thousands of proteins, but one or two of them are proteins that were chosen specifically by humans. Watch this 11-minute video for more.

Dollar stores can have negative impacts on local businesses

When a household name dollar store like Dollar General opens in a small town or local community, neighborhood businesses often lose out on key sales, driving revenue down and putting them at risk of closure. This has led some experts to argue that dollar store chains can cause economic stress, rather than relieve it.

Some critics view Marina Abramović as more of a brand than an artist

As the performer became more tied to A-listers like Jay-Z, Lady Gaga, and James Franco, culture critics began to consider the commercialization of performance art and how audiences may have flocked to see the “brand” of Abramović more than her actual work.

Technologies labeled “AI” have historically lost that title after widespread adoption

Generative AI is the latest entry in a recurring cycle where emerging tools start as "AI" until they become common software, like databases or machine learning. Generative AI and large language models may be the next platform shift after smartphones and the Web.

Hikma v. Amarin is a case the Supreme Court is hearing in 2026 that could impact how much you ultimately pay for prescription drugs

The case explores the liability of a generic drug maker for patent infringement. Hikma Pharmaceuticals launched a generic for Amarin Pharma's Vascepa (a fish oil drug), carving out a still-patented use and instead explicitly selling its product for another unprotected use. But Hikma was sued for its marketing materials that still alluded to the patented indication without outright referencing it.

Why grunge artists loathed the term 'grunge'

As the music took off, the word quickly became a convenient marketing term that lumped together bands that were rather distinct. "'Grunge,' as a term, nobody liked that," Soundgarden's Kim Thayil once said. "Everyone thought, 'Oh this is a marketing thing. This is a way to file Seattle on a retail display in a record store.'"

Understanding 'YouTube Face,' the platform's pervasive thumbnail style

It's an image that's rampant across the web's premier video platform: open mouths, astonished eyes. It looks cheesy and cheap, yet its practitioners are some of YouTube's most popular personalities. The Ringer's Nate Rogers digs into the history of the phenomenon to learn why it's had such staying power.

What it means to call something 'Orwellian'

The adjective often refers to anything that resembles the dystopian governments of George Orwell, usually a state like the one in "1984" that monitors its citizens to ensure compliance. But as this video essay from Noah Tavlin makes clear, the more precise definition is a society that redefines language to control thought.

Treating X like a product instead of a public space obscures deeper issues

Public outrage over Elon Musk's Twitter acquisition misses the point that the social platform has long failed to address hate speech, not just under Musk's ownership. Over 150,000 mentions of "leaving Twitter" were recorded over the weekend following Musk's takeover.

Many female-founded companies were branded with the color 'millennial pink'

Many of the female-founded companies of the “girlboss era” in the mid-2010s had one thing in common: A certain light shade of pink was core to their brand book. The color—deemed “millennial pink”—was found on the packaging of makeup company Glossier, the walls and logos of coworking space The Wing, and the suitcases of luggage company Away.

Disney’s IP problem, according to industry experts

Disney seems to be an unstoppable force in the entertainment industry, but after an unprecedented high point in 2019, the company began losing money. In this podcast, two industry veterans discuss what they see as Disney's existential problems: an overreliance on preexisting material and an inability to innovate as it once did.

Overuse of opioids can lead to hypersensitivity to pain

Opioid misuse can lead opioid-induced hyperalgesia, where the body becomes increasingly sensitive to pain. The body produces its own opioids as a way to temporarily block pain signals. When met with external opioid use, the body ratchets up pain sensitivity to ensure it senses the pain necessary to trigger its own response.

What exactly is college for?

The rising cost of college has many of us wondering, what exactly is a college education for, anyways? This "Freakonomics" podcast episode breaks down how colleges operate like large businesses and try to differentiate their products from one another to win market share. To find out what the overwhelming higher education system is doing wrong (and what it gets right), listen here.

Some researchers have labeled nomophobia, the fear of being without your phone, as 'the phobia of the 21st century.'

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

US consumers collectively owe more than $1T to credit card companies—almost as much as they owe in auto loans.

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

Telehealth demand for GLP-1s for weight loss is booming as consumers seek easier access.

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

Indefinite cloning of some endangered species may not sustain their longevity because cloning success rates decrease as genetic mutations accumulate.

A vending machine run with Anthropic's AI went out of business after it was convinced to give away items for free and sell a video game console.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

When you complete a CAPTCHA on a website to prove you are human, you may be unknowingly training algorithms for self-driving cars, whose systems require training data to help identify crosswalks, bicycles, and other outdoor objects.

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

Tattoos remain visible on your skin thanks to immune cells called macrophages

How the most famous Ebola book, The Hot Zone, which sold 3.5 million copies and was translated into 30 languages, got aspects of the disease so wrong.

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

A pickleball's loud 'pop' sound can reach 120 decibels, which is equivalent to a hammer hitting a nail

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.