Ci Sense Blog

Secret Missions for the Blogosphere

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We’ve been up and running here at CI Sense for a few months, and we decided that it was high time that we connected with a few of our fellow bloggers and journalists in the branding and marketing space. We know they’re all busy, so we thought we’d try to connect with them in an offbeat fashion.

We created a little story, about CI Sense being a ‘machine that can predict the future’, and crafted a little path for each person to follow. It began with a letter–a physical letter made to look like a mid-century CIA memo. We sent them in little oblong envelopes, with that little twisty string fastening (for some reason, that seemed crucial). They looked like this:

Each of these letters points to a discrete (and discreet) page on CI Sense’s site. The pages each feature a personalized video, inviting (in a manner of speaking) the letter recipient to check out CI Sense. Here’s an example:

We got the excellent Monica Hamburg to do a kind of Russian Frau Farbissina, complete with accent and bold makeup. The pages also include an introductory screencast about CI Sense, and credentials to get full access to the service.

We like the snail mail option because, obviously, people receive far less physical mail than the electronic stuff. We hope that it catches their attention (assuming, you know, it isn’t counted as a false positive by a  human spam filter). Plus, it’s just a lot more fun than sending a plain old email.

These are the folks who we sent letters to:

Good luck to all the agents!

Step 1: Win Gold… Step 2: File A Trademark

These two trademarks were also filed in Jamaica around the same time. According to the application some of the coverage includes:

• Clothing, Footwear
• Sporting goods
• Beverages
• Entertainment - Sporting Activities

I wonder if applications filed by someone with that much speed & athleticism should get some extra priority filing option…..

Does Your Competitor Still Have a Pulse?

Is your competitor still ticking?

While glancing through recently filed trademarks, sometimes you’ll come across a trademark filing from your competitor who seems to have been dormant for awhile. Just seeing this indicates that they’re still alive and kicking (and have something in the works).

Of course, filing a trademark is not exactly a huge investment, and certainly some companies have filed a trademark and gone under shortly afterwards - but for the most part seeing a new filing indicates of a sign of life.

A sign you’d be wise to pick up on.

21 Bizarre Presidential Brands and Trademarks

Here at CI Sense, we like to keep an eye on how news stories impact the world of brands and trademarks. We recently used our Trademark Explorer to search for some new trademark filings associated with the American presidential candidates.

We hit quite a rich vein of bizarre filings. These are all legitimate applications to the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Here are a few highlights, divided into actual products and odd slogans:

Weird Products

1. Mo’Bama- Apparently to be used for a ‘natural cosmetic skin care powder’. Is that anything like Mo’butter?
2. Barak? Oh Bummer! - To be used on bumper stickers and t-shirts. Clearly spelling is not their strong suit.
3. Bearack Obama - Allegedly to become a future teddy bear. We googled for some samples, but only found this eager ursine Democrat and this creepy blog.
4. Broccoli Obama - We wish we were kidding about this vegetable dish.
5. Obama Llama - Yep, that’d be a stuffed toy. And, of course, the unrelated theme song.
6. Obamanator - An ale from Denver’s Wynkoop Brewing Company. It’s already on the menu, apparently. Halfway through this campaign coverage you can hear about how they might have overdone the hop taste.
7. The Sock Obama - A plush toy. Use your imagination.
8. Palin Pink - Apparently going to be a lip gloss.
9. Palin Not Stalin - To go on shirts and hats. Maybe they filed this one before they knew how Governor Palin’s name was pronounced?
10. Hillary Magic - An air freshener spray, of all things.
11. 69 Reasons Why I Miss Bill Clinton - A ’series of books’. One reason per book, maybe?
12. Anyone But Hillary, 2008 - As you can imagine, there were a lot of variations on this for the bumper sticker and t-shirt crowd.
13. The Clinton Countdown Watch - This one harkens back all the way to 1994, but we wanted to include it because of the amusing description: “watches with a cartoon of President Clinton on the face which count down the number of days he has remaining in office”.

Bad Slogans

1. No Drama With Obama - That one ties for ‘most awful’ with ‘Obama is the Balm…Let’s Heal America’.
2. McCain for Capitalism, Obama for Socialism - To be used in electric and LED signs.
3. O.B.A.M.A. - Depending on which filing you like, this stands for “One Bonafide Achiever Making Change”, “Officially Bridging America Motivating Americans”" or “Our Best Chance for Managing America”.
4. Obama Ain’t Your Momma - More bumper stickers here. It’s unclear which side you’d be supporting if you put this on your Subaru.
5. Obama Bin Biden - Presumably this will be embossed on the back of Republican kaftans.
6. What the Hill-ary Thinking, Don’t Drop a Ticking O-Bama on U.S. Soil - I wish we were kidding about that one.
7. White Haired Dudes for McCain - There are other dudes who support McCain?
8. McCainianc! - That’s a bit creepy, don’t you think?

You can see the reports we generated for all the candidates over on Scribd. To learn more about how we did this research, check out CI Sense.

Trademark Filings & Brand Launches

At CI Sense, we often stress how trademark filings can give you insight into your competitor’s future plans and strategies. There is so much to be gleamed from what your competitor is filing.

For instance, here is an example of a timeline which shows how three trademark filings for a company predated any web mention or official launch.

In this case we also had the luxury of knowing ahead of time about a new slogan and Domain name (microsite) which made it clear what the company was going to push in their next marketing effort.

Had this been your competitor, having this information would have been far, far more beneficial than merely finding out about the new product launch. (Which would have meant, sadly: Game Over.)

Armed with the information above, you would be advised that something big was in the works, you’d have an idea of what that was and you’d be able to plan ahead, react, take action - and compete.