I was wondering the other day about facial tissues vs the brand name Kleenex. Perhaps I shouldn't bother. Kleenex is being withdrawn from the Canadian market for "unique complexities".
I know what they mean - we all experience things that are hard to "describe" so "unique complexities" is a great expression to cover things. Maybe that will become Kleenex's outgoing gift - a new expression to cover things that cannot be spoken of more clearly.
I hadn't thought about the issues involved in paper/facial tissues: "It's very difficult to ship tissue economically — you are moving a lot of air and you tend to [fill] a truck well before you hit weight limits. You definitely don't want to be shipping it long distances."
There's only one Kleenex factory in Canada - in Huntsville, so you can imagine that's not very efficient.
And then I had no idea that things could get really nasty in the trademark world. We use many trademark words as though that is the actual product. What happens is that a brand name becomes so ubiquitous that it turns into a generic term for any kind of similar product. When it loses its trademark value and the brand owner can't distinguish itself in the market, the official term for this is genericide.
One of the most famous instances of it got litigated in the 1921 case Bayer Co. v United Drug Co., in which Bayer lost its trademark for Aspirin. Since then, “aspirin” has entered the public domain. What about things like granola? That's an example. Bubble wrap is another. Magic markers, ping-pong, and even realtor are more examples. Pool Kleenex got too popular as a name for paper tissues.
They want us to know that the "decision was incredibly difficult for us to make." CBC agrees on that and titled its headline: "What a blow! Kleenex pulling out of Canadian consumer market".
I don't have any pictures of Kleenex, but I've taken lots of pictures of torn posters in Toronto. Here's an example.
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