In the prius example, my hunch is that when doing tests the the generic terms (things like "nearest competitor") failed to elicit comparisions with the prius. P

In the prius example, my hunch is that when doing tests the the generic terms (things like "nearest competitor") failed to elicit comparisions with the prius. Prius already has a not-a-regular-car cache so my guess is they had to use prius as the generic term. Or they were specifically targeting people that were already seriously considering the prius. Prius may be on the way to becoming another kleenex.