CONGRATULATIONS!! You finally made the decision to start your business. What now? You need to create your brand. As you may know, this is one of the most important decisions that you will need to make for your business.

So, how do you do this?

First of all, you will need to identify what kind of products or services your business will provide. Then, you will need to define your company’s purpose and your target audience. Additionally, you will also need to study your competitors’ brands and businesses in order to establish what exactly will differentiate you from your competitors. In other words, how exactly your business is different from any other company that offer the same product or service? Once you figure all these out, it is time to choose your company’s brand.

“Your Brand identity

tells people

who you are,

what you do,

why you do it,

and how you do it”.

It is important that you keep in mind that in the trademark world, terms are organized into 5 categories: Generic, Descriptive, Suggestive, Arbitrary and Fanciful. The Generic and Descriptive terms are easy to remember since these will be either common terms or terms that describe the product/service or some important characteristic of the product/service. For example: SOAP (Generic), SOFT (Descriptive). Under trademark law, these two type of terms cannot be protected because they are not distinctive enough.

On the other hand, the Arbitrary and Fanciful terms are extremely distinctive and therefore, are given a very high level of protection under trademark law. For example: APPLE (Arbitrary) and PEPSI (Fanciful). You need to keep this in mind when you are picking a name as your brand for your business. If you keep yourself within the fanciful and arbitrary terms when you are developing your brand, this will guarantee you that your brand will not be similar to any other brand and therefore, it will be registered and protected under trademark law. Once your brand is registered as a trademark, your will obtain trademark rights against any third party.

You should also consider adding distinctive elements to your brand such as stylized letters or colors to make it more unique. Color is one of the most noticeable element of a brand which provides an emotional connection with the customers. For this reason, brands’ colors usually impact sales or performance even more than the products/services the businesses’ offer. Especially when the color is used constantly as part of the brand because you strengthen your brand’s association with that color. Example: RED for Target.

Please note that each color has its own meaning so please choose your branding colors carefully as they will have a direct influence on your brand identity. Blue may be your favorite color, but it might be the worst for your business goals.

As you can see, there are various factors that you should consider when you select your main brand. Each of these factors will add a distinctive element to your brand which ultimately will give you a strong and successful brand.

If you have more questions about this topic, please contact me. I will be happy to guide you through this process.

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”

- Herman Melville

It is interesting when I read a lot of articles or blogs about picking the right name/logo as your

business’ brand but it is very little on the due diligence that each new entrepreneur should

conduct before he/she start using a mark. First of all, before a mark is finally selected and used in

commerce, it is VERY, again VERY important to make sure nobody has prior rights over an

identical or similar mark in connection with similar products or services. If so, the trademark

owner of the prior mark can send you, if you are lucky, a cease and desist letter demanding you

to stop using your mark. Yes! They can do that. Especially if the prior mark has been duly

registered with the local Trademark Office. At that point, all your investment will go to the

trash. Can you believe it? Changing you mark once all your marketing materials have been

published..!!! Devastating..!!

In severe cases, the trademark owner will file a lawsuit in order to obtain legal damages which

will cost you an arm and a leg. Unless, you enter into a settlement agreement with the other

party, which again, it may cost you several thousand dollars.

My recommendation is to always check if your proposed mark is available for use in connection with your products and/or services. How do you do this? In the United States, all the registered or pending marks are listed in the United Trademark Office’s database (TESS). This means that you can check if your proposed mark is similar o identical to a registered or pending mark in connection with your goods/ services of interest. In other countries, some local trademark offices have public access to their trademark database. Other Trademark Offices, they may not have public access or they charge for this services.

Now, if you find a similar or identical mark in connection with the products or services of your interest, I will suggest you to find an alternative name. It is better to be safe than sorry!

How to Create a Good Brand for Your BiZ...!