Mind share

Mind share relates to the development of consumer awareness or popularity, and is one of the main objectives of advertising and promotion.

Marketers and promoters of mind share try to maximize the popularity of their product, so that the brand co-exists with deeper, more empirical categories of objects.

For example, in the Southern U.S. it is common to hear people refer to any cola-flavored soft drink as a "coke", regardless of whether it is actually produced by Coca-Cola or not.

[2] A legal risk of such popularity is that the name may become so widely accepted that it becomes a generic term and loses trademark protection.

Companies will often attempt to prevent a product name from becoming generic to avoid losing trademark protection.