The holy grail of branding is to have your brand become a verb. One of the first was Kleenex, when you meant facial tissue; and Xerox — everyone understood that you wanted something copied.
Most recently, Google became a verb. Today, when people say “Google it,” you know it means to search it on the Web, whether with Google or not. You could use the Yahoo search engine, if you so desire.
Yahoo had the first opportunity to own the word “search,” (shorthand for “research”), but it expanded its brand so wide, it stood for too many things.
While Google offers a lot of features, its domination and timing allowed it to become the proud owner of the verb “search” among the net generation.
Today, the Twitter brand has the rare opportunity to own a word or phrase in the consumer’s mind.
Twitter stands for instant, succinct communications, or technically, micro-blogging.
The problem is Twitter wants to be cute with the brand. It calls messages tweets, not twitters.
Possibly a big mistake. People not-in-the-know look at you funny when you’re talking about Twitter, then bring up tweets. You need to keep things simple. Real simple.
Unless they change, there is a chance they will blow the very rare opportunity to convert their brand name to a verb.
But more important — an IPO, or an acquisition, for a verb is probably worth $2 billion more than one for a noun.
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