Archive for August, 2008

What’s new at Pepsico? - A Trademark Portfolio Widget

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Here is another widget from Ci Sense. It focuses on those companies which fall under Pepsico (i.e. Units), and their latest trademark filings since Jan 2008. Some of these include:

The trademarks for each owner are listed by Filing Date.

It’s always handy to have a “running” up-to-date portfolio of your competitor’s recent filings, for reference and quick trend spotting.

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Snacks & Comfort Foods: Distilling Competitive Intelligence From Trademarks

Monitoring your competitors’ trademark filings each week alerts you to new activity, but having a summary of their filings from the past six months to a year presents a big picture. It shows you the overall direction that your competitors or industry is headed. When individual trademarks are presented in context over time, the results can be luminous. Even if the product or brand has already been
launched, having recent trademark portfolios at your finger tips is an excellent Competitive Intelligence resource.

Below is an example of three companies in the Food industry along with their filings (sorted by date) from the past 6 months. Here is what we can learn from this:

  • Just a quick glance gives you a quick update of what they’ve been up to.
  • Often, closely related products will have the same or similar Filing Date.
  • Some of the non-food related trademarks have been highlight just to show some standouts apart from the main industry.
  • Although this is a snap-shot of the past six months, some of these products have yet to be announced.

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Attention Trade Show Exhibitors: Do your Homework!

You’re going to a trade show as an exhibitor. What should you do to prepare?

Well before the show, you should be able to access a list other exhibitors (or at the very least, the ones from last year).After a quick scan, compile a list of your competitors or other companies whose profile’s pique you curiosity.

Compile a list by owner of recent filings or add them to you watch list if you haven’t already. Looking at new trademark filings can give you insight into any new products you’re likely to see. They’ll probably be focusing on these new offerings at the show. For the most part, before companies spend money on ad material they’ve probably filed for one more more trademarks. Take the list with you to the show.

From experience, there’s a lot of down time (when potential buyers are off to various sessions, general meetings and so forth) use this time to walk around and see how (and if) some of those new trademarks, brands and so forth are being used.

Doing your homework can also help you decide what you may want to mention or focus on . With enough time you may even throw together a “me too!” component to what you’re selling!

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Confusion is Helpful? Who Knew?

While product packaging often makes use of distinct colors, color names themselves are an important element - and something to include in your trademark filing considerations. But to do so, you’ve got to come up with something better than “gold”, “green” or even “berry”.

But think hard – because you won’t be alone. And a company like Crayola isn’t the only one developing outlandish and original names for their colors. True, Crayola progressively moved away from generic-sounding colors such as “Green Blue” and “Yellow” into shades named “Cerulean” and “Unmellow Yellow” and have even gone with an “environmental” flavor for their recent: “giving tree”, but they are not the only ones seeking special color names.

How many outfits are of a “lemon” rather than “yellow” hue or a “sunset” rather than “orange” color? And the cosmetics industry truly seems to be taken with unique color names. You’d be hard-pressed to find a regular name like “red” or “pink” in a makeup bag (OK you’d be hard-pressed to find me near a makeup bag, but I think that’s best for everyone.)

“There are only so many colors for makeup, only so many reds and pinks — a red is a red is a red — but some of the names make them stand out,” says Nina Sisselman, vice president of creative development for High Maintenance, the company with the beauty license for Playboy. “If you’re in Sephora, with hundreds of choices in front of you, the name, the package and the color makes a difference.”

Color names are getting sexier and sexier - and weirder and weirder. While you can imagine what a color like “”Boudoir rouge” looks like, it may take more brainpower to figure out how red something like “Gash“ is, are whether you’d really want that on your eyes…

But odd and, dare I say, even repulsive color names, achieve a marketing coup. A Wharton study found that:

“when consumers spend more time thinking about a product, they form more connections to it and end up liking it better. Trusting souls that they are, shoppers believe marketers are trying to tell them something important with a name, an assumption she traces to the way people fill in the gaps in confusing conversations.”

I recall a Seinfeld episode where Elaine shows Jerry her nails which are painted “Toxic Waste Green” and remarks, “revulsion has now become a valid form of attraction”. I worry…

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