Invest in your brand

A brand is not just a name. It is an asset. Here’s how you can take the first steps toward owning a truly world-class brand.

What do the most valuable brands in the country—and in the world—have in common? They have consistent, purpose-driven and meaningful brands. They are treated with care, monitored and controlled, tended to and tightly guarded. In other words, a lot of conscious effort is put into building and preserving the essence of the brand.

Sadly, branding isn’t taken seriously enough by many of our small businesses. The reason: far too many entrepreneurs assume that branding is just a matter of choosing a trade name for their products or services.

To encourage more small and micro businesses to go into branding, the Small Enterprises Research and Development Foundation (Serdef) will hold a Brand Slam contest to coincide with Small Industry Week in July (See poster).

Let’s go through the essentials of what you need to do to build up your brand.

Know the trademark basics

Far too many entrepreneurs mistake company names for trademarks. They’d register their company name with the DTI or the SEC and then assume that this is now the name that has to go onto their products. So if you’ve registered your business name as Stark Inc., then you might assume that your products should also be known as Stark products.

Not necessarily. A company name is just that, the name of your company. And sure you could do business using your company name, but you would be missing out on the many efficiencies of branding.

Here’s why: company names tend to be unwieldy. Especially if your single proprietor business name is something like BRIAF Food Enterprises or your corporate name is Menlarko Inc.

And chances are that they will be unwieldy because, let’s face it, all the good names have probably been taken!

What you need is a trade name, or a trademark. So your business name may be KXPIA Inc. (boring!), but your products can be known as PowerDrive (exciting)  which would be far more memorable.

Brand names that have seemed to work for some small businesses include:  Eureka for 13 PM Enterprises’ educational toys; Pinakurat for Green Gold Gourmet’s spiced vinegar; and Mama Sita for Marigold Manufacturing’s condiment line.

You settle your business name with the DTI or the SEC, but you settle your trademark with the Intellectual Property Office. The good news? The IPO is net-savvy now, and you can check out their online site, https://trademarks.ipophil.gov.ph/tmonline/, to see if the brand you want is already taken.

You’ll have to define what industry categories your products or services belong to. The IPO uses the NICE classification system, which you can get from the website of the World Intellectual Property Organization. All you have to do is to ensure that the brand you want hasn’t been taken yet in the NICE class that your products belong to.

Set up your brand strategy

Okay, here’s a little secret. The truth is that the actual brand name may in fact be the last thing that you will have to consider. That’s because before you even decide on your brand name, you must first plan out your brand strategy. Ask yourself:

What products and services do you plan to offer under your proposed brand, now and in the future? You‘d want to know this as early as possible because you wouldn’t want to be stuck with a brand name that wouldn’t lend itself well to your future products down the road.

Who are your target markets, now and in the future? In the same way, you’ll want to make sure that whatever brand you come up with will appeal to all your potential target markets.

What messages will you want to communicate? Is your brand going to be happy? Formal? Adventurous? If it were an animal, what kind of animal would it be? What attributes should it connote? Is it creamy, tasty, fast, friendly, environmentally sound, fragrant? Will it imply a specific product, like cakes or energy bars or car parts? List down all messages you want your planned brand to stand for. This will guide you for the next step.

Design your brand elements

After all that pre-work, congratulations! You can finally start getting your brand designed!

A word of caution: unless you have a good solid background in the graphic arts, DO NOT try to design your trademark yourself. Many entrepreneurs think they’re saving money by designing their brands themselves, but this leads to loss of credibility over the long term due to what consumers perceive to be amateurish branding. Instead, invest in the services of a graphic artist.

Things to consider for your brand elements:

Your font. It should properly reflect the messages you’ve  mapped out for your product from steps one and two above. Are you targeting the youth? Then your font should be young and energetic. Offering a classy product? Use a stylish font.

Brand symbols and icons. A symbol is a visual representation of your brand. Would it be an animal? An object? A stylized letter? A scene? Again, whatever it is, it should help achieve the elements of your brand strategy as mapped earlier.

Color palette. What will your official color scheme be? Your graphic artist can help you out here. Once the palette is determined, implementation will now be about keeping everything consistent, from your communications to your packaging and to your products.

Materials. What are allowable materials for your communications? Will you be sending out flyers? If so, what kind of paper will you be using? What should your signage be made out of?

Building your brand is not as simple as thinking up a name and running with it. You need to do a bit of homework, and you need to think long term. Yes, it will be a bit more work than you may have initially bargained for but, if you invest time and resources into doing it right, then you may be on your way to making the next world-class brand!

(The author is with the business faculty of the University of the Philippines.  He is a management consultant and is active with the Philippine start-up community.)