Honeywell By Any Other Name
How ‘bout Kaz, Inc.?
I bought a little fan this morning to circulate a little more air in the living room, a “Honeywell High Velocity 7” TurboForce Table Fan,” to be precise, or maybe not.
Target sells it for $10.99. I got it home, plugged it in and it works just fine.
Before throwing the instructions in the junk drawer, I happened to see that I had a five year limited warranty from something called Kaz, Inc. I then looked on the ”Honeywell” box and sure enough in letters about ¼” high, “The Honeywell trademark is used by Kaz, Inc. under license from Honeywell Intellectual Properties, Inc.” “TurboForce is a registered trademark of Kaz, Inc.” That makes me feel good. “Made in China.” Isn’t everything?
I Googled Kaz, Inc. and learned that it makes of bunch of home products which it sells under the names of companies with good brands. Honeywell, Braun, Vicks, Proctor & Gamble (Pur).
“Since Max Katzman invented the steam vaporizer in 1926 and founded Kaz, the Kaz brand has stood for innovation and value in health care and home environment products.” Well maybe, but it apparently doesn’t hurt to buy someone else’s name and slap it on stuff you have made in China.
5 comments:
This must be the opposite end of the spectrum from when big name corporations pay large sums of money to have their names on a stadium or arena (or bowl game, which I do not approve of). They'll take money from a no name corporation to put their name on a product they don't make.
At least the fan was affordable and 'works fine'. Could be worse.
My parents got burned on a fan, too. They thought they were getting a name-brand fan that would last longer than the ones they normally get.
So the "Honeywell" name no longer means "quality." From now on, when we see Honeywell we'll think "scam" and "cheap imported crap."
In the long run, licensing their name to inferior knock-offs is going to hurt them (I hope).
Problem is not that it "is" cheap junk, but that you don't know. It may be well build to Honeywell standards as a condition of using the name. But since you don't know for sure, it still cheapens the trademark.
Companies like Sears have been having goods made by various manufacturers sold under their label since the year dot. It happens with food and other products too.
Hey Opit,
You're absolutely right about Sears. Lots of retailers sell "house brands" made by others. But I've never before seen the raw sale of a name for the sake of the value of the name, where the owner of the name has no connection with or responsibility for the product.
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