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What's in a (product) name?
Do you really want your marketing to achieve "household name" status
for your product?
It used to be the dream of marketers that their product
name would eventually be used as a verb.
If you made shoe polish, imagine the kudos and marketing
"cut through" when consumers talked about "Nuggeting" their footwear?
If you made vacuum cleaners, imagine the marketing
leverage when the house-proud felt bound to "Hoover the carpet"?
For many small/medium businesses, that level of mind-share
is just that — a dream.
But a change coming soon to trademark laws should focus
even smaller players on the care needed in naming and promoting
products and services.
In future, trademarked product names which become commonly
used as generic descriptions can have their registration revoked
— losing their legal protection. Lawyers acting for well-known brands
have already begun issuing warnings to those using product names
inappropriately in print media and the internet.
The Institute of Patent Attorneys has made a submission
on the Trade Marks Bill but says it can do little more to stop its
progress. It says companies with commonly-used brand names should
focus instead on educating the public.
However, it may be too late when your choice of product
name is used as a generic description. How many of us say "pass
the Sellotape" when we don't know for sure whether the dispenser
holds rival 3M's Scotchtape?
When Sellotape's marketing people coined the word years
ago they knew it met key criteria — it was descriptive of the product
and it had a certain ring about it. Perhaps they dreamed their marketing
would lead some people to use their product name as a general description
for adhesive tape.
Now they have been forced to put legal advisers on
the case, warning the word should be used only in reference to the
product and then with an initial capital letter.
Brand owners are being careful about what names they
use in the New Zealand market.
Sealed Air Corporation, inventors of bubble wrap, market
the product as Polybubble in New Zealand, although they own the
Bubblewrap trademark throughout the rest of the world.
A recent campaign to boost brand awareness abandoned
advertising in favour of public relations techniques which linked
the company and its brand to the product we know generically as
bubble wrap (click here to request
the Popping Media Myths case study).
Choosing a product name is important, doubly so now
there is a risk of trade mark revocation.
Timaru-based Smitch New Zealand Ltd came up with a
subtle blend of words for their invention which turns electrical
devices on or off remotely using a mobile phone and the national
paging network.
They saw that "smart switch" would probably
not be accepted for trade mark registration because it could easily
become a generic term.
Smitch is trademarked and the invention itself (and its distinctive
shape) are patented. Yet "smart switch" remains part of
their marketing, as in "Smitch, the smart switch" (try
saying that fast!).
They will still be protected under the new legislation.
"Smitch" isn't likely to become a generic term, even if
"smart switch" is. And competitors will find it hard to
wrest the obvious association with "smart switch" from them.
Leveraging product names, tag lines, and plays on words
into greater brand awareness and mind share will continue to exercise
the minds of marketers and communications professionals.
Now we can add trade mark protection to the list of
considerations.
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