1000 Business Lessons Every Businessman Must Know

Chapter 29 Brand Management: A Good Brand Is Made through Management (2)
Brand preference is also typically a survey that asks consumers how they would make a choice given many different situations for the consumer.The information obtained from the brand preference survey can only be used as a directional reference because the accuracy is not high.Only when consumers "vote for their choice with money", that is, buy with money, can you really know which one they like in the face of a dazzling variety of brands in that situation.Market research is notoriously inaccurate in its assumptions about how people will buy something.Likewise, the only way to know how much people are willing to pay for something is to sell it to consumers.On the other hand, research on which products consumers are willing to buy within the same price range is helpful and can provide accurate direction.

Sadly, the real world is not a perfect place, and people drop their favorite brands because of the situation.A favorite brand may be out of stock, or a desired size or color or packaging may not be available.Competing brands may happen to mark down prices or offer promotions.Competing brands don't all have promotions in the same place, so not all options are readily available at the time of purchase.Consumers may also like premium brands, but can't afford them.There may be other influences involved in the decision-making process.

236. Measuring Brand Loyalty

Measuring brand loyalty is difficult. If measuring brand awareness and brand preference through surveys is possible but challenging work, measuring brand loyalty is more complex and important.One sure way to measure brand loyalty is to record repeat purchases of the same brand in point-of-sale systems in scanners so that this data can be collated and provided to transactional supplier partners.

Other ways to measure brand loyalty are through surveys of past purchases, usually obtained through online check-ins, return comment cards attached to products, or personal follow-up surveys.Non-specific retail audit surveys can also provide some brand loyalty data, but the error rate is high because they are only based on consumers' recall of purchased brands, and brands that sound similar or are highly popular are often easily confused.

237. Influence Can Create Brand Loyalty
Teenagers are notoriously concerned about gaining approval from others.This creates an ideal situation for brand creators, just create a brand that teens must have and they will flock to it.For example, Dai Lier Company sells punk clothing and accessories, directly targeting girls in the age group of 10-24.Most of their sales come from teenage girls.This teenage girl market is quite huge, with 2800 million consumers and an annual spending of 600 billion U.S. dollars.

Delil's sales climbed by $1.5 million in just a few years after its founders struggled to find investors to raise money.This niche point is built on peer pressure, peer support, and a unique brand created by making good use of the network power of today's online forums. It is indeed a strong and powerful brand.

238. Enabling brands to enjoy strong prices

Championship golf balls command strong prices because of the performance of the professional golfers on tour.Gillette is a company that has established itself as a premium product brand in the industry through solid excellence.Gillette's super-sensing razors and Zephyr 3 razors, Oral's multi-action toothbrush, and gold-top copper-yellow-top durable batteries are all listed as the highest priced and best brand images in individual product categories brand.Products sell well precisely because they embody the brand image and fulfill the brand promise.

The Neptune washing machine from Maytag Appliances is a breakthrough in design that uses less water than competing brands while washing dirt effectively.Colgate's Total Toothpaste has been proven effective in removing plaque and has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Inspection Administration, thereby strengthening its brand position by performing superiority among similar products.As long as these companies' brands relentlessly deliver on their quality promises and remain true to their brand identity and image, the premium prices and profits will continue to flow.

239. Building a country’s brand
How about branding an entire country?We all know that brands are equated with certain countries, and we more or less define those countries by the products they produce.

At some point during this development, most countries will go through a counterfeiting phase.Their capabilities have grown sufficiently to be able to create near-real and functionally acceptable knockoffs of major brands.

While brands may seem insignificant in the makeup of world politics and culture, they are not.A series of product brand images for your favorite country will help overcome the country's cultural shortcomings and even outweigh cultural atrocities.Most importantly, in an era of severe overcapacity in export markets, deflation can quickly sweep across the globe.Emphasizing one's own importance in the global market will be a key focus for a country.

Just as brands can survive outside companies, they can survive domination and mistakes, as long as they are launched, established and operated in moderation.

[-]. How to implement brand protection
240. Trademarks: the first line of protection
The precise things you should know about intellectual property protection, first and foremost trademark protection.Trademarks and service marks are simply words, names, symbols or images used by creators and sellers of products and services to distinguish them from those made or sold by others.

Trademark protection refers to the use of words, names, symbols or images to distinguish the owner's products or services from others.A trademark that can only be used to represent the classification or type of goods, but cannot distinguish the goods that symbolize the owner of the trademark from other suppliers, cannot be protected by law.For example, the term "personal computer" cannot be trademarked and protected as a computer, because it only describes a certain type of computer, sold by many manufacturers, and is not used to distinguish the products of one manufacturer.

A mark that is so similar to an already used mark (in a certain country) that it is likely to cause confusion or misidentification cannot be protected even if it is registered.In addition, trademarks that provide a "descriptive" statement about the function or nature of a product or service must meet special requirements before they can be protected.

The trademark law allows the owner to use the trademark on a certain type of goods or services by giving the owner the exclusive right to use the trademark. The trademark protects the owner who may have used or is using these trademarks to protect the commercial identity of the trademark owner. .Trademark owners can obtain court injunctions to protest the infringer's misuse of the trademark and seek damages for infringement.

There is also a hidden danger that you may apply and get approved and still get in trouble.During the first 5 years of registration, a company can challenge your registration as long as it can prove that it is already using the name!You could win the case, but that represents a risk—especially if you use the name infrequently or barely, while other companies already use it extensively.

241. Copyright Law: The Second Line of Protection

While copyright law cannot fully protect brands, copyright law is part of an overall protection "net" that includes many forms of legal protection such as trademarks, design patents, copyrights, and more.Copyright law can include the packaging used to contain and depict products or the advertisements that accompany the slogan, which has become an integral part of the brand itself.

Copyright law can be used to protect advertising and product packaging designs when trademark law does not apply.Copyright owners enjoy the following five exclusive rights.

(1) Right of reproduction—the right to photocopy, reproduce or transcribe.

(2) The right to modify - the right to modify the original work and create a new work.New works adapted from pre-existing works are commonly known as "derivative works".

(3) Distribution rights—the right to distribute copies of a work by selling, renting, or lending to the general public.

(4) The right of public performance - the right to recite, play, dance, perform or publicly display works in public places, or to communicate to the public.The presentation of a series of images in a film, videotape or other audiovisual work is also called a "performance".

(5) Public display right - the right to display copies of works directly or indirectly through films, slides, video tapes, etc.In this case, the presentation of a film or other audiovisual work as a series of images can still be regarded as a "display".

Anyone who infringes upon the exclusive rights of the copyright owner is called an infringer.Taking action against infringers is one way to protect the valuable identity of a brand, be it advertising or packaging, or literature or brochures.

The duration of copyright protection is determined by three factors:

(1) Who created the work.

(2) When the work was created.

(3) When the work was first commercially distributed.

Generally speaking, copyright belongs to the person who created the work.However, if the work was created by the employee and is considered part of his or her employment, the employer owns the copyright because it is a work for hire.Copyright law also includes another form of "work for hire": it applies to certain forms of work that are commissioned and require a prior contract.

You do not need to apply for a copyright license to use the factual part of a protected work, because copyright does not include fact.

242. Patent law applies only in certain cases

Patent protection is more effective protection for products, but usually not for brand names themselves.

During the term of the patent, the patent holder can prohibit others from producing, using or selling the innovation or design protected by the patent in other countries.

Anyone within the period of patent protection, without the permission of the patent owner, even if they have not copied the patented innovation or design, or do not know that the innovation or design is patented, as long as they produce, use or sell in other countries and enjoy the patent The protected item is the infringer.

Once the patent for the innovation or design expires, anyone has the freedom to produce, use or sell the innovation or design.

243. A common name cannot be used as a brand
It is very important for a smart brand builder to know how to choose a brand name that both describes the product and protects it.A common mistake is to choose a name that is too common for a brand, hoping to make it the brand with the most potential.But this is usually not successful, often after investing a lot of money, or facing trials, or the brand's trademark will not be approved.Things like "computer store" or "fresh bread" are obvious examples, which cannot be protected.Trade names like superglue and windsurfboard make sense to the companies that use them, but attorneys at the Patent and Trademark Office think otherwise.The brand name must stand out and not be too mundane.

Occasionally there will be a compelling reason to use an established brand name, and the benefits it brings will justify the cost and time of legalizing it, risking losing it.This happens when the common law is on your side and someone else has taken over the brand name which happens to be out of circulation and you have invested large sums of money to use it in your product or service.In this case, find an experienced attorney who will work for you and be prepared to spend a lot of money.You might be able to win some rights to your brand!
244. The brand cannot be too strong
Dangerous things can happen if a brand name is so successful or powerful that it becomes the only name consumers remember for a product.As the name becomes part of everyday speech, trademark protection for the brand is rendered useless.Some well-known brands that have lost trademark protection include nylon, aspirin, cellophane, and elevators.

Now you need to know what the laws say, how they do or don't protect brands from imitation or theft; and what the technical interpretation of the legal term "infringement" is.

The most common issue with intellectual property infringement is creating names or images that sound or look alike in order to trade on the branding benefits of well-known brands.

245. A brand is a brand, not part of a language
Proper use of a brand can make it strong, protect it, keep it from getting over the edge, into the trap of losing the right to own it, because it becomes the common vocabulary, it becomes part of the language.

Many well-known brands walk on the edge every day.They are so strong that it turns out that every Coke ordered is a Coca-Cola, every photocopy is a Xerox photocopier, all Christmas gifts are wrapped in Scotch tape, and all premium shipping is FedEx, This can be the joy of brand builders and marketing managers, and the nightmare of IP lawyers.

A brand has to be uniquely portrayed as being connected to a company product or service, and it demands even more attention when that wonderful, scary edge kicks in.

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