brandwidth
n. The amount of brand recognition enjoyed by a product or service.
Etymology
Examples
1998
A final thank you to Spike's super salesman, Stephen Murphy, who invented the word "brandwidth" — and convinced Wired to include it in its monthly "Jargon Watch" — two years before this column appropriated it.
—C. Chris O'Hanlon, “Best and the worst of developments on the web,” Australian Financial Review, March 20, 1998
1997
As bandwidth grows, companies will need to boost their 'brandwidth' to keep pace. As more and more information becomes easily available to consumers, it will be a lot harder for firms to cut through the clutter.
—Jeannette Hanna, “Digital game plans,” The Financial Post, November 01, 1997
1996 (earliest)
Brandwidth
The theoretical limit of a product’s expandability into different media, venues, market segments, et cetera. "Hello Kitty has a shockingly large brandwidth."
—Gareth Branwyn, “Jargon Watch,” Wired, August 01, 1996
Notes
Brandwidth is a blend of the words brand and bandwidth. The latter is a wirehead term that is a measure of how much data can be stuffed through a transmission medium (or "pipe" in the vernacular) such as a phone line or a network cable.
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