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When do marketing and legal advisors agree?

Brand is the many perceptions and promises that stakeholders feel and believe about an organization and its product and services. Brands are assets built on the promises made with each customer touch point (i.e. any point of interaction by person or item.) This means when the finance department double bills clients, the brand manager must work harder to regain lost trust. Brand managers need all the help they can get to build and protect a strong brand.

Brand building is a white-hot topic that is used by a few people with genuine knowledge and experience (along with others offering little expertise.) Finding the right advisor is critical and can have tremendous impact on the end result. Brand protection is on the other side and is often forgotten, especially when the latest idea for boosting sales hits a creative hot button. Building and protecting brands are equally important and require professionals who understand the intricacies.

Great brands start with a clear understanding of the basics: who, what, why, when, and where surrounding a product or service. Then, because people don’t make decisions on facts and features alone, brands need to tap into the emotional rewards and the customer experience. Brand fundamentals, when outlined, are both the platform and filter for all future creative ideas. The name is the first hurdle to creating a strong brand.

Names fit within four categories, generic to descriptive to suggestive to arbitrary. Managers favor descriptive names because the customer doesn’t need to work hard to understand, but this is a dangerous mistake. Names that suggest versus describe what the brand does have a better chance of being memorable and engaging. On the other hand, legal council will favor suggestive or arbitrary names because they offer more protection and ownership. Brand managers agree with this as the name is more unique to the category and memorable to audiences. Naming is the first activity where legal and marketing advisors should agree.

A trademark is the second most important brand asset. With name as the first part of a verbal language, a trademark initiates a visual language. Similar to a name, a trademark is stronger if suggestive versus explicitly descriptive. This requires a professional, able to create a simple, concept driven, and relevant visual metaphor or identity. And, unless you like your legal advisors fat with billings, this is an area where we favor a trademark that is suggestive and distinctive in your category because it offers more opportunity for ownership.

From here the visual and verbal language is developed and can include any number of touch points. If you create a distinctive visual and verbal language, many components can be protected as an asset of your organization. Consider for example, the Intel Inside sound, McDonald’s restaurant architecture, and of course the Coca-Cola bottle.

While the investment in brand building may seem large, it’s important to know that you’re making an impact on your brand every day. Even just small, inexpensive improvements can have a rewarding impact on your brand. And the cost now is always less, than after you’ve made simple decisions that are detrimental to building a strong brand.