Today’s Journal of Marketing (JOM) debate session titled “Brand Attack: How to protect your brand” (held at the Michelangelo Hotel).

Our panelists were:

• Geoff Whyte – Brand Consultant
• Jermery Sampson – Group Executive, Interbrand Sampson
• Jenny Pienaar – Partner : Trademark and Litigation Department, Adams & Adams
• Noah Greenhill – Senior General Manager – Marketing and Business – JSE
• Zayd Abrahams – Sparkling Beverages, Coca Cola Company

The debate began with a showing of the now famous Darth Vader – The Force: Volkswagen Commercial .

Jeremy Maggs [@maggsonmedia] led the discussion and here is an overview of all the questions and answers from the session:

What should brands protect their brands in ads?

• Jeremy Sampson – brands should entertain and use copyrights to protect their brands.

Can brands copy other brand logos and ideas?

• Jenny Pienaar - The more successful you brand is the more prevalent it is in terms of exposure – there is law that supports brands. As a brand owner you must act fast to protect brand from infringement
• Noah Greenhill - This is a tactic used by brands (copying ideas) – for example “No name brands”.

How do you deal with infringement threats?

• Geoff Whyte – There is a huge amount of brands passing off as others so it is important to protect your brand space in every way.
• Zayd Abrahams – Smaller operators are outclassing bigger brands as they copy colour, mottos, brand ideas for example.
• Geoff Whyte – Challenge for businesses is managing value propositions and quality as Chinese goods flood the market.

Can Brand laugh off imitations?

• Geoff Whyte – You cannot afford to as the brands name is at stake therefore a brand needs to make sure that they protect the brand legally from such infringement.
• Jenny Pienaar – Infringement must be dealt with in any way possible as its damage to the brand can be huge. You may be ignored by the perpetrator but this is worth pursing in the quotes.

“There is no quick remedy to copyright infringement” – Jenny Pienaar – Partner : Trademark and Litigation Department, Adams & Adams.

How do big companies deal with infringement?

• Zayd Abrahams – Consumers need choice however within the boundaries of copyright infringement. Brands must make sure that the employees understand the rights that they have.

How else can brands try and make sure that consumers don’t move on to other brands?

• Geoff Whyte – The emotional questions come to play: “how emotional does brand A make me feel”? or “how do I feel about the cost of product A vs. product B”?
• Noah Greenhill – You may also try and often change your brand packaging so that you cover yourself from any infringement (to protect your brand space).
• Jermery Sampson – In order to protect the brand make sure you register all variations and aspects of the brand (e.g. colour, image variations, logo aspects, packaging shapes).

Do people fail to protect their brands?

• Jenny Pienaar – One you identify what your rights are then you must protect them. Then from there you will know once someone has infringed on your rights. These trademarks must be able to be represented graphically in order for them to be registered.

Examples of copyright infringement cases:

How critical are price points when it comes to imitation products?

• Jeremy Sampson – It is very important but we must not forget quality even in times of recessions.
• Noah Greenhill – Consumers buy according the trust of the brand therefore brands should not worry about imitations and the price of these goods.

How does trademark infringement affect local brands?

• Noah Greenhill – Brands often forget to register globally and concentrate on the local markets. If they do this early they can avoid international infringement.

Our next Journal of Marketing Debate will be titled:

“Direct Marketing – What changes does the CPA bring? And what’s the best way to reach your customer, and get results?”

Date: 30^th of June, 2011.

For further information contact – Megan Larter, 011 803 2040 or email – megan@thefuture.co.za.

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Brands and Facebook

In this document we see how brands can utilize Facebook! A very nice read!!!

Digital provides us with a medium for extremely measureable objectives, which we use to the benefit of Clients. In social media, digital also gives the market a vast platform to voice their opinions.

But the majority of marketers are still not using the consumer comments and opinions as a measured justification component for digital media plans, online strategies and campaigns.

Continue reading

More and more the balance of power is changing in favour of what the consumer decides a Brand is all about. Many factors have contributed to this but the most significant being technology and the ability to rapidly disperse information in a totally transparent manner giving the person-on-the-street that ability to voice her/his voice.

The internet and specifically web 2.0 has provided the various platform for this with blogs, social networking sites, forums, wikis to name a few. Marketers need to embrace this change, understand the conversations that are happening around Brands in this space and continuously find ways through passive engagement adding “content” value and allowing consumers to then “pull their Brands in” rather than aggresively pushing our one-sided messages onto them.

See Andy Rice of Yellowwood in an interview on eTV talking about this trend.