Which brand conjures up a more powerful image that sticks in your mind: (a) The Fizzy Drink Co. or (b) Pepsi-Cola? How about: (a) The Super-Fast Car Co. or (b) Ferrari? The first is what I would call a descriptor, while the second is more of what I believe is a true brand.
How does one hit upon a true brand? Read on.
Over a 40-year span, I have traveled extensively around the U.S. and Canada visiting clients and, all too often, I have seen descriptors used as brands—for instance, the London PA Shop, AV Unlimited, National Sound and Audio Systems Ltd. Yes, they all tell a story, but they do nothing to differentiate one company from another. They are not truly memorable or unique. A brand should become a personality, like Porsche, Nike, Apple, and Amazon. Tell your friends you purchased a Volvo and they will think that you bought a safe, boring car. Not a bad thing if you have kids!
When I started my company, I had a clear goal of one day selling the machine ... I did not want it to be the Peter Janis company.
Where to begin?
Your brand actually starts with your core vision. Do you want to be a regional player, national entity, or to grow to have an international presence? Is it a product or a service? Will there be goodwill value when you are ready to sell? Goodwill is made up of intangibles such as notoriety and position in the market. My name preference is something more on the lines of Catapult AV or Altitude Architectural.
Your brand starts with your core vision. Is what you're offering a product or a service?
When I started my company, I had a clear goal of one day selling the machine. I did not expect to have my kids take it over. I did not want it to be the Peter Janis company. I am not a fan of brands like Frank’s Towing or Mary’s Doughnuts. They may be fine for local stuff, but as soon as Frank and Mary move on, the moniker no longer has any meaning and the brand loses its value. There are certainly examples where a using a person’s name makes sense. Robert Mondavi used his name and Italian heritage to bring confidence to his wines. Today, his kids run the company. So, the Mondavi name is a source of family pride.
When creating a brand, I always use the same process. I start with a piece of paper and draw a vertical line down the middle of the page.
In my case, I was branding a product line and my goal was to sell finished goods around the globe. Therefore, I had to find a name that would work as well in Germany as it would in Korea. Creating a word out of thin-air can get you in trouble! There have been countless examples of brands that sound great in English, only to mean something akin to cat-manure in another language. Before we made direct boxes, we were making cable assemblies. A cable, when cut and looked at on end, is circular or round. Radial … from Latin is a scientific word that every schoolchild is familiar with. I figure it would fit perfectly. The logo is actually the crosscut of a Mogami 2534 quad cable.
A brand should become a personality, like Porsche, Nike, Apple, and Amazon.
When creating a brand, I always use the same process. I start with a piece of paper and draw a vertical line down the middle of the page. In the first column, I begin by creating a list of values that I identify with. In the second, a list of offerings. Once compiled, I usually take a thesaurus and see if there are synonyms that evoke passion or pride. A common direction is to start with something like "the highest," which often leads to words like "apex" or "summit." My advice: Don’t cull the list right off the bat. Allow yourself time to digest what you have written down. When I was looking for a name for our acoustic line, I started with "first" and then "acoustic." By combining the two, I ended up with Primacoustic.
Do you have a Coke? Pass me a piece of Kleenex. Can you Google that for me? Rarely does a brand become synonymous with a category. In about 2001, we decided to launch a device called the Radial JD7, which would enable one guitar to drive as many as seven guitar amps. The JD7 also had a feature that enabled it to take a pre-recorded track and run it through various amps or effects after the recording was done. In simple terms, it lets you change the guitar sound while keeping the performance. The process is called re-amping. This trick has been used since the days of the Beatles, and [it] later became synonymous with Steely Dan. Record producer and engineer John Cuniberti—famous for his work with Joe Satriani among others—managed to build a dedicated box and [to secure] an application patent and the Reamp trademark in the early 1980s. I knew that his patent would not hold up in court, but I decided to pay him a royalty for every reamper that we built under the condition that we had first right of refusal if he decided to sell the brand. I figured the cost was minimal given the outside chance that we could own a lesser version of Kleenex. When John finally decided to sell, we scooped up Reamp, marketed it to studios around the globe and, in essence, owned the Reamp category.
What's in a trademark?
There is some confusion with respect to using the "TM" trademark and ® which designates Registered trademark. Anyone can claim a trademark. So, if you design a logo and add the TM to it, you can claim it as yours. This does not mean that you will be guaranteed to own it, because another company may also claim the same or similar trademark. The courts will often protect "first use" if you have proof in the form of an article or ad that has appeared in an industry journal. It is well worth your time to do extensive searches online, since this can save plenty of heartache down the road should you have to fight it out in court.
Be aware: getting a trademark in the United States does not protect you in any other country around the globe. You actually have to apply to each country separately.
The ® can only be applied, obviously, when you have your trademark registered with a government authority. The process begins with a search done by a trademark lawyer. Once your choice of brand is safe, you would then spend the money by applying for the trademark. Be aware: getting a trademark in the United States does not protect you in any other country around the globe. You actually have to apply to each country separately. China is even more challenging—you do not have to prove date of first use, you merely need to be the first to apply.
In closing, be forewarned: there are many unscrupulous individuals that scan the web looking for companies that are not protected. They register your brand with the government and then attempt to sell the rights back to you. They will do the same with a website, too.