Tag: brand name selection

Trademark Titan Blog’s Recommended Read for Marketers, Brand Managers, Business Owners and Trademark Attorneys: Positioning – The Battle for Your Mind

Positioning – The Battle for Your Mind

by Al Ries and Jack Trout

A Must Read for Branding Gurus

One of the all-time classic books on branding is Positioning – The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout. Although the book was written a number of years ago – as evidenced by its examples – it’s still nonetheless a must read for marketers, brand managers, business owners and trademark attorneys, even in today’s social media world.

The Battle for Your Mind

How I Learned of this Book

I was fortunate enough to have learned about this book by one of my good Canadian patent and trademark attorney colleagues [Philip] during a Blue Jays baseball game while attending the 2006 International Trademark Association’s annual meeting in Toronto. Since then, I have sent numerous copies of this book to a number of my clients and branding friends as a “must read.”

One of those individuals has since moved to another company and was recently named the Director of Marketing for the parent organization overseeing global branding. In an e-mail the other day, he informed me that one of the first things that he asked his team to do once he was elevated to his new position was “read this book.”

How this Book Has Helped Me

This book has allowed me to not only better understand what goes on in many of my clients’ “marketing heads,” but also be an advisor for many of my clients on brand positioning strategies as it relates to brand name selection. Let’s face it; the brand name is, in my opinion, the “face” of the branding strategy. As I have blogged about on a number of occasions [including here and here], brand name selection can be the difference between brand failure and brand success.

Thank you Philip for your friendship and for offering me some of the best advice that I’ve been given in my many years, which was “Roger, you need to read this book.”

My Advice to You

I now share Philip’s advice with you: please take a few hours out of your day, weekend or week and “read this book.” You won’t regret it and, if you’re like me, you will probably never think about branding and brand name selection the same way again.

Here is the link to Amazon. However, if you can’t wait, go on down to the local book store, buy a cup of coffee or tea, sit back, relax and change your way of thinking.

Revisiting The Four "D’s" of Brand Name Selection

Brand name selection does not have to be difficult. Proper consideration of brand names does take time and thought-provoking analysis, however. Not considering the following four brand name factors could potentially prove fatal for a company’s new product launch.

1. Distinctiveness – Is the name legally protectable?

Terms/names that are considered to be generic for products are never protectable as trademarks. For example, the term Lawyers.com for providing legal services via online channels will never receive trademark protection. Selecting a generic term as a trademark is brand suicide.

Further, names that merely describe certain attributes of a product will not receive trademark protection upon first use and may never receive trademark protection. Although descriptive terms may become eligible for trademark protection once the “mark” has been put to continuous and substantially exclusive use, that can take years and tens of millions of advertising dollars. I hear marketing folks say that if my mark is descriptive, I don’t have to spend much money on advertising, right? If that were only true. In fact it takes MORE money and resources to advertise a descriptive “mark” because it can take tens of millions of advertising dollars to convert a legally unprotectable descriptive term into a recognizable trademark.

Tip: Select brand names that are legally protectable upon first use.

2. Distinguishable – Is the mark distinguishable from the competition?

Why select a mark that is not distinguishable from the competition? Although a selected mark may be “legally” distinguishable from competitors’ marks, it still may get lost in a noisy marketplace of similar marks.

Companies that use marks similar to their competitors’ marks run the risk of losing sales and potentially developing bad reputations that belong to their competitors. For example, if a competitor’s product with an overall similar name receives bad press or even worse kills someone, that publicity may inevitably rub off on those companies with products with similar names. Why take that risk?

Tip: Only select names that are legally protectable and sufficiently distinguishable from the competition.

3. Da Position – Does the company have a positioning strategy?

A brand name should communicate a product’s positioning strategy. Select a name that begins the positioning process. For example, what products have the slogans “Melts in Your Mouth Not in Your Hand” and “The Uncola?” Those slogans positioned their products at the top in their respective categories. Also consider whether a slogan can re-position the competition. Think about how Procter and Gamble re-positioned Listerine with the simple slogan “Medicine Breath.” Re-positioning a competitor with a slogan is one way of gaining market share.

Tip: Select a mark or slogan that will capture the position or niche and then don’t let it go!

4. Da Attributes – What are prospective purchasers looking for?

Selecting a mark that suggests an advantage of a product or a result that consumers want from a product can be a game changer. Rather than look at how a company perceives its own product, a company should look at how consumers already perceive it’s product or similar product, then look for the solution in the mind of consumers. Then select a name that reinforces consumers’ perceptions. What do consumers want from car batteries, for example? Of course, they want a long-lasting dependable battery. That’s why the mark “Die Hard” has been a huge success.

Tip: Select marks that convey attributes desired by consumers.