Whether it is a new company starting out (or an established company launching a new product), there is a daunting decision to be made regarding the marketing (/branding) strategy.

On the one hand, does one brand its company using a descriptive trade mark? For instance, include words in the company name which identifies or hints at what the business will actually do, thereby reducing immediate marketing expenses, as the company would only have to ‘teach’ its customers who they are and not what they do, as well.

On the other hand, the company could choose a long term marketing strategy by adopting a completely distinctive trade mark, which has proven to be the most effective route for the majority of the largest multi-national corporations.

This branding strategy could be done in one of two ways. The first would be to select a trade name that does not at all describe the businesses proposed activities, eg. the name “Apple” for a computer manufacturer (as apples have no descriptive application to computers whatsoever). The second method would be to create a word, eg. the name “Kodak”, created in the late 1800s by a photographic company and is now one of the most recognized brands around the world.

The benefits of this latter strategy, from a trade mark law perspective, is greatly beneficial and is far less likely that the company will infringe any third parties trade mark rights, or that a third party will infringe its rights without a clear intention to do so – ie. it could be far easy and less expensive to protect the trade mark rights.

Unfortunately such a strategy does not come cheap and, in particular, in the short term, when the company is just starting out and a marketing budget is limited.

Once the name is chosen, its case of securing your trade mark rights and other registrations. To begin, one would conduct a trade mark availability search of the Trade Marks Register to ensure no other party had a similar ‘bright idea’. Then it’s a case of registering the trade mark, as well as a CC / company name if necessary. In addition, as we live in the 21st Century, a domain name to go with a website is a must.

At the end of all of this, one would have built a comprehensive Intellectual Property portfolio and all that’s left, is to market the brand

Publication Name: Brand Marketing

Date: April, 2013