Derrick Rozdeba on Branding: How important is the trademark® name and logo™ design?

No one and no brand can live with out a name. The musician Prince (born Prince Rogers Nelso

n) tried for five years and failed. The pop star dropped his name and requested to be referred to as the icon oat left, a symbol he devised, for which there is no pronunciation. What was wrong with “Prince”? I could understand it if he was called “Sue”. Left with no pronunciation the media called him "The Artist formerly known as Prince," which was eventually shortened to the acronym "TAFKAP." In the end TAFKAP went back to his original name Prince.

The first most important element to a brand is the name and/or logo design. You must have the word mark and/or design mark trademarked and legally protected both locally and internationally. This is the first priority. If you can’t protect it move on and find something you can. Investing millions of dollars on building a brand on a trade name or mark doesn’t make sense if someone else can use it.

There have been many trademark disputes of misuse. Toy maker Mattel Inc. is always going to court to protect its clean-cut Barbie doll brand against misuse. Most recently they took legal actions against a pornographic website.

During World War I, the American government seized Bayer's trademark rights and sold them off to Sterling Drug. In 1995 it took $1 billion dollars for Bayer AG to acquire the Bayer Aspirin line and the rights to the Bayer brand name and trademark in North America (Sterling Winthrop) from SmithKline Beecham. Today, it is one of the top recognizable pharmaceutical brands in North America and in the world.

Not only do we compartmentalize information in our brains by words (i.e., trademark names) we also associate strongly with images (i.e., design marks). Sometime the design mark is a visual

interpretation of the brand name like the pecten in Shell Oil or the M (golden arches) in MacDonald’s, or the apple in Apple. Over time a brand name is loaded with the brand experience and the design mark (a simple visual element) can be interchangeable with the trademark name.

The Nike swoosh is a wonderful example of transferring the Nike brand experience to an elegant design mark. Remember the PGA Masters game in 2005 when Tiger was at the 16th hole with a chip onto the green. The ball reached the cup as if in slow motion then for an endless period of time it sits on the lip of the hole. The Nike logo in full view, as the ball finally drops into the hole. The crowd goes wild and again a winner is confirmed. You couldn’t buy this type of advertising in a million years.