Regional branding. This is the Q-Tip issue: it didn’t matter which company makes the product, the term has fallen into common usage to refer to a generic thing, in this case, powdered flavored sugar that you reconstitute in water. Or the beverage of your choice.
That’s an interesting fact that I didn’t know, though.
It’s not regional branding or genericide which is the term for what your talking about where a brand name becomes the generic usage for a product in place of the generic name (i.e. Kleenex instead of facial tissue, Velcro instead of hook and loop etc.)
Flavor Aid and Kool Aid are two distinctly branded products made by two different companies. When I have more time I’ll see if I can dig up the interesting write up I read about this from the Kool Aid company perspective at the time and post it in an edit.
No need; I believe you about them being different products. But Kool Aid is a generic term for powered sweet drink mix. People just say “Kool Aid” when they mean powdered sugar drink.
Edit: oh, and I can totally believe Kool Aid itself would be really concerned about it, but honestly I doubt most people have any thought up whether it was Kool Aid™ brand flavored drink, is all.
I couldn’t find it which is too bad because it was an interesting op/ed piece from what I remember by some exec who worked for Kraft at the time on the Kool Aid product and how they panicked and freaked out, especially since the day of the mass suicide it was Flavor-aid.
I also so some sources, when I was looking, that said Kool aid was present on the compound and had been used in earlier tests by Jones so that added to the confusion.
Interesting! I usually remember that Jonestown wasn’t in the US, but events like that aren’t really my bag, so anything I know about it I picked up incidentally. Now I know a couple more things; thanks!
Regional branding. This is the Q-Tip issue: it didn’t matter which company makes the product, the term has fallen into common usage to refer to a generic thing, in this case, powdered flavored sugar that you reconstitute in water. Or the beverage of your choice.
That’s an interesting fact that I didn’t know, though.
It’s not regional branding or genericide which is the term for what your talking about where a brand name becomes the generic usage for a product in place of the generic name (i.e. Kleenex instead of facial tissue, Velcro instead of hook and loop etc.)
Flavor Aid and Kool Aid are two distinctly branded products made by two different companies. When I have more time I’ll see if I can dig up the interesting write up I read about this from the Kool Aid company perspective at the time and post it in an edit.
No need; I believe you about them being different products. But Kool Aid is a generic term for powered sweet drink mix. People just say “Kool Aid” when they mean powdered sugar drink.
Edit: oh, and I can totally believe Kool Aid itself would be really concerned about it, but honestly I doubt most people have any thought up whether it was Kool Aid™ brand flavored drink, is all.
I couldn’t find it which is too bad because it was an interesting op/ed piece from what I remember by some exec who worked for Kraft at the time on the Kool Aid product and how they panicked and freaked out, especially since the day of the mass suicide it was Flavor-aid.
I also so some sources, when I was looking, that said Kool aid was present on the compound and had been used in earlier tests by Jones so that added to the confusion.
Interesting! I usually remember that Jonestown wasn’t in the US, but events like that aren’t really my bag, so anything I know about it I picked up incidentally. Now I know a couple more things; thanks!