Do Business Well

Because it’s so easy to capture, store, process, and redistribute digital information, it is becoming almost impossible to police trademarkand copyright infractions on the Internet. Consider for example, the problem of the Digital Fan.

The digital fan: Let’s say you own a major rollerblade hockey team, the Hanover Hippos. Your team has won the world championships three times in a row, and made you millions of dollars selling merchandise and information about the Hippos. You’ve created your official Hippo Home Page, and receive more than a million hits a week. But something is amiss. Many of your fans are starting to set up their own online fan clubs. They’re plastering the Hippo logo all over their pages and posting statistics and player profiles downloaded from your site. As well, fans of your archrivals, the Neustadt Nimrods, have set up anti-Hippo sites filled with lewd images which they have made by digitally altering your logo. Continue Reading »

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Knox (2000) summarizes the potential rewards associated with successful branding.

Pickton and Broderick (2001) argue that commodity-type products such as metal tubing or screws, which in the past have been perceived as ‘non-branded‘, should be considered as branded through their packaging, labelling or logos.

Companies are creating brands through the consistent use of names, logos, a form of packaging, colours, shapes, typography, short descriptions or slogans. Branding can be provided through a variety of mechanisms, such as brand names, brand logos, trade names or trade marks.

Brand name

A brand name is the part of a brand that can be spoken and which includes letters, numbers or symbols, such as Coca-Cola, VW, or Yahoo. This might be different from the legal name of the company; think, for example, of the use of initials such as AA or RAC, or numbers such as 7-Up or 3M, which have created enduring brands. Brand names can be reinforced through the use of a distinctive colour or typography. The classic example is the Coca-Cola brand name, which has a strong visual appeal and is recognized anywhere in the world through the design rather than the words. Coca-Cola is easily identifiable whether the name is written in English, Arabic, Russian or Chinese because the look is always the same. Continue Reading »

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