Shireen Smith asked:


Generic names and Trade Marks  

In the offline world a generic name is never a good brand name. Such names have limited potential as trade marks even if you manage to register them (which we may manage to do for you in combination with a logo). Nevertheless people choose generic names because the name immediately communicates the type of goods or services the business provides.

Is it any different online? Would brands like  Books4Less and PersonalInjuryLawyer be good ones?

Before answering this question, let us clarify what is meant by ‘generic’ from a branding and trade mark point of view. A generic name is one that describes the product a business is engaged in providing. Whether a name is generic is relative. Examples of generic domain names that have reportedly fetched large sums of money on a resale as domain names are Wines.com and Mortgage.com. Such names are generic as brand names for a wine merchant or mortgage provider respectively. To give a ridiculous example, if the wine merchant used the brand name Mortgage.com, or the mortgage provider used the brand name Wines.com, the names would be distinctive rather than descriptive for trade mark purposes (although as a brand name it would still not be as good as a proper name – a side issue which is outside the scope of this article). 

So, provided a name does not “consist exclusively of signs or indications which may serve to designate the kind, value, quantity or purpose of goods or services”, it may be trade marked. A distinctive, different and non descriptive name gives you the singularity that is the hallmark of a memorable, trade markable brand name.

In trade mark terms the best names are made-up ones that are suggestive of the product or services to be supplied, but not descriptive of them. If a business can coin a distinctive name – ideally a proper name like Coca Cola, Exxon, Ford, Mercedez Benz, McDonalds, Starbucks, the name will be ideally suited to the purpose of building brand identity around it.

Why not a descriptive name?

The danger in choosing descriptive names is that the business sets itself up for confusion with competitors. Descriptive words are those that competitors may legitimately want to use to describe or advertise their products and services. For example a wine merchant will need to be free to use the word ‘wine merchant’ otherwise it could not engage in its business activity. If the first person to use the word ‘wine merchant’ were able to stop everyone else using the term, then it would give the first comer such a monopoly that they could stop all competition in the marketplace. That is far from what trade marks are designed to achieve.

So, given that you cannot stop competitors using the same descriptive words in their names, choosing a descriptive brand name inevitably means loss of some potential customers because prospective customers who are trying to find you may mistakenly find your competitor instead. Therefore, descriptive names are poor vehicles for capturing goodwill or brand value. You do far better in the long run with a distinctive brand name than with a descriptive one. Once you achieve name recognition trade mark law will prevent competitors free riding on the back of your success by using name that are similar to yours. This is the essence of trade marks – to reduce the likelihood that consumers will mistake other businesses for yours.

Names and brands – online

How does all this translate to the web where there is a tradition of choosing generic brand names? Is a generic name a good choice for an online start up? Well no.

What makes a good brand name offline is no different to what makes a good brand name online. Although people tend to think it is good to opt for generic names – possibly because they confuse the search engine advantages that such names may have with what makes for a good brand name – generic names are in fact a poor choice of online brand name, just as they are a poor choice for offline brands. In the short term they may help you to communicate what your business is all about. For example, if you are called Books4Less, people will immediately know something about your aims. But on the other hand, if you are called Amazon, they will not immediately know that they will get a good price from you. However, once Amazon has proved itself to you, its singular name will be etched in your memory far better than a non distinctive name like Books4Less.

So, why do so many internet businesses choose such bad names? Possibly because when the internet was new, and there were few sites up and running, a common, generic name was an advantage. If you wanted to look for a site selling toys, you typed in “toys.com”. It was like an old fashioned grocery store. Whatever you wanted you looked for by its name. So, a common, descriptive name was the most direct way to communicate what the site was all about. However, the advantages of these descriptive names immediately disappeared once the numbers of websites grew.

Newcomers to the web nevertheless carry on copying what has gone before. They think a descriptive name is the way to go, and adopt such names in the misguided assumption that this is the correct approach. Just because many sites use common names doesn’t mean that a common name is the best strategy for your site. It only means that most internet operators are under group pressure to conform.

Guidelines for choosing online brand names

So, when you are choosing online brand names, try to emulate the successful internet businesses by choosing singular names like Amazon, Yahoo, Dell, Bebo, Facebook and Ebay. These are the businesses that have prospered and entered our collective consciousness, while the numerous generic named businesses that came and went despite enjoying serious venture capital backing have faded into oblivion. All they have left behind are valuable domain names that may have changed hands several times by now, and are principally valuable for search purposes. For example, books.com redirects to Noble & Barnes bringing extra traffic to that site.

Another point to bear in mind when choosing names is that on the internet there are no shop signs or geographic areas to attract passing traffic. With an offline shop called ‘Books’ someone driving past may notice the bookshop for reasons other than its name. For example, the shop may stand out due to its striking window dressing, or by virtue of its location, or simply because it is now there instead of the print shop that used to occupy that space. On the web, people will only find you through your brand name. So, the last thing you need is to get lost among a sea of similar names.



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William King asked:


A great branding campaign is an asset to your business and is sure to pull in repeat business. Here are the reasons why:

Inspires trust: –

A branded product or service tends to inspire confidence in people because there is the perception that the quality of service will be higher. This is usually because the branding makes the product or service easily identifiable and it becomes more important to the business to maintain a good reputation. People tend to view unbranded products with a little bit of suspicion due to the pervasiveness of branding in every sector of business. Retaining customers is a factor of trust, a brand is able to create in their minds.

Builds brand identity: –

Customers associate a certain image with a brand name product or service so in one sense, a business without branding is a business with no identity. Once a customer has purchased a product or service from a business and is satisfied with it, branding allows the customer to locate the business easily again and get repeat business. For instance, if you were to eat the best ice cream in the world at a little drive by ice cream place, you’re not likely to remember its name, or anything beyond the taste of the product. But with branding, it is likely that you will remember some other little detail that will help you find the place again or locate it in your own town.

Know what to expect: –

Along with identity, a major portion of repeat customer business comes from satisfying and living up to a set standard each time. Branding suggests to the customer’s mind that you have established certain standards and will deliver on these every time you sell a product or service. This means that the customer has an idea what to expect and comes back for the same experience again. One of the functions of retaining a customer is to provide the same level of service and branding carries the connotation that you will do that.

Growth with branding: –

Branding can be an essential part of the growth of a business. It is the backbone of expansion simply due to the fact that it provides you the opportunity to use the good image that you already have in place and replicate your success. For instance, going back to the earlier example, if you were to eat this great non-branded ice cream, you’d probably rave about it and then forget it after a while. If you were to eat one that was branded, you’d probably notice the next time you passed another ice cream place with the same branding and then become a repeat customer. You’d know that you could get this product at different places and would look for it closest to your own home.

Aspirational brands: –

In case of lifestyle brands, the repeat sale is about the experience and branding makes all the difference in retaining customers in this section of the market. If you are able to sell a great experience to the customer along with a great product or service, the customer is sure to come back and give you repeat business.



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Jonathan Andrews asked:


Managing a brand is similar to building a reputation. It grows slowly, gaining trust and loyalty from its followers until it becomes established. Brand recognition and consistency in the marketing message builds trust which in turn leads to increased sales. However, consumers are fickle and are easily distracted by bigger, bolder marketing messages and shinier packaging, and trust is easily broken.

Like building a reputation, it is often much quicker to lose that reputation compared to the time it took to build the brand. It is therefore imperative that companies pay attention to their brand management and business reputation.

Building Brand Awareness Campaigns

Every brand is different. It takes a lot of understanding to get the message across. By using creative brand communication strategies it is easy to gain the attention of your consumer.

A great example of a company that has achieved this is Johnnie Walker. They have built the brand based on an emotional campaign. A difficult task, and one that works best when it flows from and reinforces a product truth. Their “Keep Walking” campaign produced good sales growth of 48% over eight years for what was an ailing whisky producer.

Here are four tips to build a campaign based on emotion similar to the Johnnie Walker campaign:



Tell a story – Bring to life the brand idea of “personal progress” that people want to aspire to.

Make it hard to copy – In the case of Johnnie Walker it is near impossible for another whisky brand to copy this campaign as it is based on the brand icon and name.

Consistency is key – Use one message consistently. In the case of Johnnie Walker the brand name is linked to the message and each advert ties back to the packaging or marketing material.

Execution is everything – Quality and attention to detail is noticed, from TV commercials to print advertising to website marketing. All material ties in with the primary message and campaign.



Managing your Reputation

Once you have achieved brand recognition it is imperative to maintain your reputation. Reputation management can be defined as the process of tracking an entity’s actions and other entities’ opinions about those actions; reporting on those actions and opinions; and reacting to that report creating a feedback loop.

Understanding this process and being part of it is the bare minimum a company needs to pay attention to in order to keep its reputation positive. Reputation management has come into wide use with the advent of widespread computing.

Five simple tips to manage your reputation include



Conduct a reputation audit – identify all the issues that could affect your company’s reputation

Analyse the issues to ascertain the historic influence, current landscape and potential future state of that issue

Effect change strategy options to deal with each issue and action them

Constantly evaluate your landscape

Be present, consistent and communicate your message persuasively



One thought leader that truly understands that consistency and communication are two of the key ingredients for brand success and is able to express this message effortlessly is David Taylor, world renowned expert in persuasive brand communication strategies.

Taylor’s guide to the essential steps of achieving persuasive brand communication can be summarised as follows:



Understanding the brand and setting objectives

Getting the team right

Keeping the brief and briefing tight

Getting the most from production

Brilliant brand activation

Developing and executing the campaign



How then do we drive sales through brand management?

Build Bridges between Marketing and Sales

There are positive and synergistic roles in both marketing and sales, and if each side agrees to the role embraced by their counterparts, the organization will thrive. Traditionally it was quite challenging to identify criteria for building the bridge between marketing and sales.

Traditionally a company would turn to the following five strategies:



Take a fresh approach to prospect development

Determine the pipeline requirements

Synchronize the marketing communications pipeline loading activities with the requirements of the sales force

Feed the sales pipeline with precision

Practice aggressive marketing to build the relationship



Marketing and sales were traditionally kept as two separate concepts whereby marketing paved the way, while sales closed the deal. With the advent of widespread computing the gap is being narrowed fast. Social media is the key to this outcome in the online approach.

With social media spaces becoming more popular, salespeople and entrepreneurs all over the world are using LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites to discover new markets, meet prospects directly and forge profitable new business relationships. No lead generation, branding or cold-calling required. In a sense, many salespeople are becoming their own marketers.

The roles could be defined as follows: The sales role in social media networking is to initiate and develop key relationships. The marketing role in social media networking is to assist salespeople plan, execute and measure their efforts.

Regardless of the approach, whether online or traditional effective brand communication remains key to all strategies.



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Andrea Trivilegio asked:


Gucci. Calvin Klein. Sony. Samsung. Mercedes Benz. Ford. The Body Shop. Maybelline. Brands. Brands. Brands. They say money makes the world go round. I say brands makes the world spin in its axis.

As a buyer, I will not deny that I am saving my money to buy the latest winter fur coat that Dolce & Gabbana will sell. I will spend the last cent until my credit card reaches its limit just to buy the latest iPods and mobile phones that BlackBerry and Apple will release in the market. But of course when there’s a Spring Sale at Macy’s, you can count me in and I’ll spend my current paycheck to buy that vintage-looking Christian Dior sunglasses that’s for 50% off.

People are all brand conscious, whether they like it or not. Brands is something very important because it speaks the quality of the commodity, or to the socialites they buy the product of that brand because of the mere fact that it is known to be expensive, whereas to others, these are the brands that they have to avoid because they do not have enough money to pay for it, or they can wait for the sales so they can use their cash cards or their credit cards to get it.

Brand marketing online. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to choose for a brand name? Giving a brand name to a product is as difficult as persuading someone to buy your product especially if it has not yet established a name in the industry. This is even harder if you are thinking of venturing into the world of Internet Marketing.

Brands are usually the first thing that a consumer checks and that is what he will easily remember. So apart from creating the best goods and having the best ideas on how to promote this product, it is also important to pick out the most exceptional brand name that will carry the company as long as it exists.

There are several tips that can be followed in creating a brand for your company. It is best that your company chooses a brand name that is unique, short, can easily be spelt out and can easily be remembered. People’s likes and dislikes are very outrageous. Perhaps, there will be some people who will think your brand name is so common, yet to others it is very surreal; there will be a number of people who might say the brand name that you chose is weird and doesn’t suit the product that you are trying to sell. It is best that you consult other people’s opinion before you close your options on the brand name that you will baptize to the fruits of your labor.

Also give into consideration that not all people who uses the Internet has a mind similar to that of Einstein, so better choose a word or group of words that can easily be spelled and uttered at the same time. If you are not French and your product is not even close to being related to French people in any way, don’t use a French word or name for your product because it is very difficult to spell out and pronounce.

Aside from giving a brand name, remember that you are using the Internet to advertise and sell your product. You also have to have the best team who knows how to design your website artistically. You must create an incomparable domain name, logo, articles and a whole lot more that will attract your target market as well as other people who are just passing by your website.



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