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Have you ever wondered why you call a specific type of product by a particular brand’s name even if the product doesn’t belong to it? Among each industry, there is a dominant brand and despite the existence of other brands that serve the same products, these products are still named after the dominant brand.
In today’s article, we will be showing you the dominant brands in Egypt and how its name became the official title of the product even if it belongs to another brand, and this has been going on for decades.
What Is First-Mover?
A first mover is a brand that launches a service or a product that dominates the market due to being the very first to be launched.
Being the first brand to launch a certain product enables the company to form a strong recognition and a strong bond with customers. The reason for the first-mover success is that it has no competitors, it has its own market to dominate, and no race to win.
In fact, being a first-mover makes the brand has followers more than they are competitors as the other brands will be learning from it more than competing with it.
How Brands Dominating The Market
Being the first to launch a product or a service can make the brand the boss of the entire industry.
Launching one of a kind product means that the brand will have access to all resources with no interruption or interference from other brands or running out of raw materials. With this edge of unlimited accessibility, first-mover brands will establish a long-term dominating position.
Also, competitors will find it hard to enter the market as it will be hard to shine with the existence of the first mover. Therefore, the competition won’t be much of a threat to the first-mover brands.
Examples Of Market Dominant Brands
There are many brands in almost all industries that are dominating the market.
The Egyptian brand “Chispy” has become the official name for all the chips snacks, as for noodles, if you asked anyone, they would instantly tell you “Indomie” when there are other brands of noodles. If you went back in time to the 90s, you’d remember how we all loved the ice cream “Kimo Cono” which was a cone ice cream. Later, the brand’s name “Cono” became the official word for any type of cone ice cream.
Another old brand named “Karate” is still used until this very day to describe this certain type of snack. As for the beverage sector, some people call Soda Pepsi despite its brand.
Have you ever wondered why people call the triangle cheese “Nesto”? It’s not a type of cheese, it is actually the first Egyptian brand of this type of cheese as it was first launched in the 70s along with its advert.
One of the most diaper brands is Pampers, yet people call all diapers Pampers even if they belong to another brand. Kleenex as a brand also became the official name for tissues in general; if you want a tissue, just say I need some Kleenex.
This even reached the medical sector, as almost all people call any type of a small painkiller aspirin.
Moving to the cosmetic sector, everyone calls a hair straightener Babyliss, even though Babyliss is just a brand.
What do you call a flying insect killer? Probably Pyrosol, which is the brand’s name not the actually spray.
Finally, Crocs; Crocs is a brand for casual shoes and sandals but there is a certain type of casual shoes that everyone calls Crocs even though this is not the name of the product, it is just the name of the brand.
The Advantages Of Being A First-Mover
Aside from dominating the market and being the most popular brand, there are other advantages to being a first-mover.
1- One of the perks of being a market’s dominant and first mover is getting the perfect and needed recognition as the brand will be the number one most needed.
2- Setting the standards, since the first mover is the one in control, it gets to set the general standards for the products, which will be followed by other similar brands that will be established later on.
3- Becoming irreplaceable, since consumers will buy the product from the first mover, they will be creating a strong bond with the brand and it will be hard for them to move to another competitor.
4- Being the only brand in this field will have the option of having many suppliers as there will be a huge variety to choose from.
As much as it is relieving that there are no competitors, as much as it is extremely stressful as the brand always needs to meet its consumers’ expectations, and there is a risk that it could fail, just we have seen many brands disappear even after having a successful launch.
