At least in my generation (born in 80s), I think the name is so synonymous because of Henry Hoover : https://www.viking-direct.co.uk/en/p/155384 (shopping link -- I couldn't find a non-shopping link). Although it only says Henry on it, everyone knows it's Henry Hoover. This is THE absolute classic vacuum that most people have owned or used at least once in their lives. Not sure if it's much of a thing outside the UK.

FWIW I own a Henry, and I had no idea the name was a play on Henry Hoover's name -- it's not manufactured by Hoover, after all, and it postdates the word becoming a generic term by a long way. I think the article's take on it is more likely -- machines branded Hoover were so ubiquitous in the first half of the 20th century that the term became a common word (the OED has cites for 'hoover' the verb with no capitalization or quote-marks starting in the 1940s), and once something is a common word it gets passed on to later generations regardless of whether the actual device in use is one from the company or not. (Though I remember in the early 1980s the hoover my parents had was indeed a genuine Hoover...)

But Henry is made by Numatic, not Hoover.

FWIW, Numatic is a British company, and not in the "Claims to be British but actually based in the Far East and doesn't pay any tax in the UK" way like Dyson.

Non shopping link: https://www.numatic.co.uk/products.aspx?r=4&sr=1

People call it a Henry Hoover in the same way they they call any sticky tape, sellotape.

Hoover is a brand name that has become genericised, a Henry is no more or less a Hoover than a Dyson is.

Here's a list of some others, Hoover is on the list

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_generici...

Yeah a whole lot of the story makes no sense. There’s plenty of ways - sensible ways - to offload aging inventory that don’t involve schemes like this, and I’m left wondering if there is more to this study than what’s in the article. As in, if this random travel agency had some personal connection to Hoover executives at the time.

It sounded like the original promotion with just fights inside Europe went well. It was the expansion of the promotion to include the USA that seemed to have caused the problem.

I suspect "well" might be an exaggeration. I bet they were doing the same complex-claims-process, but no consumer action groups got involved.

Without a consumer action group, most customers will just be disappointed when told that they were disqualified because they filled the form in in black ink instead of blue. The few customers that make a big fuss can be given flights.

It's only when a group gets involved that you have to give them all what they're entitled to, and it gets expensive.

I think the bigger difference is that initially the sort of person that used the promotion was somebody who saw it as a reason to pick Hoover over Zanussi or Electrolux products and often bought the higher end washing machine or fridge they were actually looking for rather than the cheapest vacuum cleaner, so Hoover often did better than break even on the promotion when taking into account their profit margins versus whatever wholesale price they got on the flight tickets. And lots of genuine customers didn't bother filling out forms, and few people looking to buy flight tickets to Italy for about £119 decided to get a vacuum cleaner and some booking hoops to jump through instead...

When £600-£1000 face value tickets were offered, the logic of buying the lowest cost qualifying electrical product instead of the flight to the US started looking entirely different...

"Nothing sucks like a Vax"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_sucks_like_a_vax