Branding Is Everything!

Those of you who have watched BBC's show "The

Apprentice" may remember Sir Alan Sugar telling everyone that

branding is the key to business these days. He went on to

congratulate the winner of the latest series for having a

magnificent brand but a lousy product! Whilst his comment was

clearly an exaggeration, Sir Alan does have a very valid point, in

that the consumer usually buys the brand first and the product

second.

Brands can be the most important asset of any business. A brand

can be synonymous with particular values such as build quality,

excellence in service or even low cost. A brand can be used to

communicate a multitude of messages to customers. All of which

makes misuse of your brand a disastrous concept. According to a

survey by the Daily Mail, 65% of shoppers said similar or

misleading packaging confuses them and 1 in 3 admitted buying the

wrong product because of confusing packaging.

In most instances businesses look to register their brands and

logos as trade marks early on in the lifecycle of a product. A

trade mark is a powerful tool and helps to establish a legal right

which can be defended. A trade mark may be a word mark, a logo, a

picture and, in certain circumstances, can be a musical jingle, a

colour or even a smell! A trade mark will give the owner a complete

monopoly over the use of that mark in respect of whichever goods

and services for which the mark has been registered. There are 42

different classifications of trade mark covering everything from

the products themselves through to services such as selling on the

internet and consultancy services.

In the absence of a registered trade mark, protection of

reputation and goodwill can be much more expensive. This is because

without a registered trade mark a brand owner can only take an

action known as "Passing Off". Passing off is a

common-law tort that has evolved over many years and one of the key

problems in taking such a case to Court is the vast amount of

evidence required by the Court to show that particular name or logo

has...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT