Tupperware (the Brand) May Fail. Tupperware (the Word) Will Survive.

Style|Tupperware (the Brand) May Fail. Tupperware (the Word) Will Survive.

When Tupperware filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday amid slumping sales and rising debt, the news unlocked an airtight seal of nostalgia for many who fondly recalled Tupperware parties and childhood leftovers. Hearts ached for a brand that was seemingly conjoined with the American kitchen — and working women — for decades.

But no matter what happens with the brand, the name Tupperware will never go away — not really. That’s because many consumers will continue to refer to their resealable food containers as Tupperware, even if those containers are not Tupperware. (Most of them aren’t.) And that may have been a part of Tupperware’s problem.

In marketing parlance, a phenomenon that is likely to have played at least a small role in Tupperware’s demise is known as genericization, which is when a brand name becomes so well known that it supplants the product itself. Think of brands like Kleenex, which is synonymous with facial tissue, or X-acto, which has become a stand-in term for any type of modeling knife.

By the way, when was the last time anyone asked for “an adhesive bandage”? People, instead, ask for Band-Aids, even if those bandages aren’t really Band-Aids. And that Ziploc baggie? Amazon sells its own sandwich bags these days. So do Dollar Tree, Whole Foods and a host of other companies.

Tupperware, though, seemed to crumble amid the competition that it helped to create.

“The big, savvy companies know how to protect themselves,” said Charles R. Taylor, a professor of marketing and business law at Villanova University’s School of Business.

Laurie Kahn, a filmmaker whose 2004 documentary, “Tupperware!,” won a Peabody Award, said in a telephone interview that she wasn’t terribly surprised when she heard the news this week.