Confusion is Helpful? Who Knew?
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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…
3 Ways to Smell Your Competition a Mile Away
How do you know that your competition is planning to launch a new product?
Always be on the lookout for the Big Three: Trademark, Domain Name & Slogan. The first indication would, of course, be that they have filed a new trademark. But if you find not only a new trademark, but also a new domain name (for instance, the mark itself) registered as well, there is a good chance something new (e.g. a new direction) is in the works often in the form of a microsite. And if you find another trademark - but this one is in the form of a slogan, it’s quite obvious a new marketing push is underway.
For instance, last June Procter & Gamble, among other marks, filed:
- “Clinical Strength”
- “Because You’re Hot”
- “Secret, Because You’re Hot”
On the same day, the domain name becauseyourehot.com was also registered. All three were for “Goods” described as “Antiperspirants, body sprays etc…” That domain is now the website for Secret’s new “teen focussed” deodorant, Sparkle Body Spray, “an extension of the Secret Sparkle line of teen deodorant”.
It’s amazing what you can sniff out when you follow the scent.
What Not to Make
Most of the time it’s important to know what your competitors are doing, so you can stay ahead of the game, and possibly be inspired.
But sometimes it’s just as critical to see what they are coming up with - so you can make sure too keep as far away from the concept as possible.
Some of my favorite outrageous (and entirely unappetizing creations) include:
- Dooey-Gooey cookies. It’s probably not as bad as it sounds, but still…
- Slime Balls and Gel Tubes. Get ready to eat snacks from a tube!
- Pur Flavor. Having flavored water come out your tap is simply wrong.
- Batter Blaster. If you don’t have the 3 minutes it takes to mix pancake batter yourself, you’re right: you clearly have more important things to be concerned about than breakfast.
Have you heard of any strange products? What odd items are you happy you didn’t think of?
Take Steps to Get to Know Which New Players Mean Business
It’s always interesting to track new trademark filings in your industry. To get an extra edge, try finding companies who’ve filed for the first time. By keeping an eye on recent trademark filings you can be the first to know about the new kid on the block.
Now, take this a step further. Gather all the trademark data you’ve collected over time (say six months) and see where those companies are at in terms of bringing their products to market. Have they done anything with their trademarks? What strategies have they used? Have they been successful? Voila, you’ve got a useful competitor tracking system.
What’s Happening Here?
There’s a trademark party going on and you’re invited.
Well, it’s more like a gathering than a party. CI Sense knows trademarks don’t have a reputation for being exciting, but we’d like to show you that they can indeed be riveting.
CI Sense is a new trademark search service. But, unlike other services, we won’t merely alert you to new trademark filings. We’re doing something smarter. We present and analyze data in a clear way so that you can keep an eye on your competitors, find new competitors, identify emerging industry trends, etc.
From a comprehensive trademark search to automated watch lists, detailed reports, historical filings and portfolio analysis, CI Sense is your crystal ball into new brands and products headed for the market. Trademarks can provide a picture of what’s happening in your industry and even make it easier to concoct new product idea. Competitive intelligence made clear.
These are some examples of stories we’ll be covering on our blog:
How to incorporate trademark intel from CI Sense into an overall competitive intelligence strategy, why categorization is important for CI, solid overviews of key trademark topics, fun posts about strange trademarks, informative pieces about the world of trademarks, as well as monthly posts spotlighting the top five creative trademark filings that month.
We won’t be covering legal issues around trademarks, like conflicting marks, opposition cases, etc. For a legal lens on trademarks, check out The Trademark Blog or Likelihood of Confusion.
Now back to the second part of our introduction – we don’t want to do all the talking – we know how dull that can be at any party. We’re sincere about your place in this conversation: while we will be providing our thoughts about the world of trademarks, we’d love to hear from you and what you think about these posts. Are you learning anything new about competitive intelligence? What frustrates and excites you?
We are looking forward to some great discussions!
Get All the Information You Need to Stay Ahead
Dave Wieneke has recently written a compelling post on Useful Arts offering tips on how marketers can “stay ahead of their competitors”.
One of his suggestions is to “watch for new competitor trademark applications”. He correctly states that the government site USPTO is a good starting point, but should not be your only source, since it “can spot exact hits, but not close calls” and does not compile information from other sources (e.g, incorporation listings, company directories and product announcements).
Dave suggests supplementing with a service which allows you to search for trademarks and be alerted of new filings:
“…so that when a named competitor registers a new mark, you’ll be notified in time to plan opposition or a marketplace response. You can register to receive notices each time a named competitor files a mark, or when marks are filed in a specified industry.”
“Early Warning” competitive intelligence is critical. But while like Thomson Reuters and similar services provide good information – they can be quite limited, especially in terms of how data is reported and they tend to be very expensive.
We try to avoid tooting our own horn, but in this case we think CI Sense provides a better – and more comprehensive - solution. Rather than merely alerting you to new trademark filings, CI Sense presents and analyzes data in a clear way and provides you with unique information, in report form – making your job much, much easier.
So you can watch your competition, find new competitors, identify emerging industry trends and even get brainstorming ideas.
All this means you don’t simply find out what your competition is doing – but have real tools to “stay ahead”.
CI - Just for Big Businesses? Think Again.
Think competitive intelligence is mostly relevant for bigger companies? Trademark searching for competitive intelligence may be even more vital if you’re a small or medium-sized business.
Often, in this blog, in order to provide recognizable examples, we refer to well know-brands and companies. Chances are, however, that you and your competitor are not P&G, Apple or Pepsi (there’s a reason it’s called Fortune 500 not 300,000).
Vernon Prior astutely remarks:
“If, for instance, a large multinational corporation fails to read the market correctly it can often buy its way out of the problem. A small business making a similar mistake will probably fail completely. In some ways, then, involvement in competitive intelligence is much more important for a small business than it is for a large one.”
Further, a smaller business has its own niche markets and needs to be to keep abreast of new developments. Sharing the same niche market with only a few competitors means an even greater need to look over your shoulder.
“Obviously, if you have an SME [small and medium enterprise] and wish to compete effectively, you should aim to offer something different. …you need to find out what is going on, decide what to do about it and take action before your competitors. That, very simply, is competitive intelligence (CI).”
Smaller businesses are faced with too many elements to keep track of, and up until very recently, developing an efficient competitive intelligence strategy was a daunting endeavor. Watching your competitor involved monitoring every possible source to figure out what your competition was doing, planning and so forth. This was not only time-consuming - but also beyond the scope of many smaller businesses. How many truly have the time or resources necessary to dig “into every corner and crevice available” in order to fully understand where they stand and what to do next ?
Missing something pivotal, as Vernon Prior mentioned, can be the kiss of death. You need to know about developments, as they happen. By the time the news of your competitors new product or direction hits the stands (or the net), your competitive advantage is generally lost.
Overall, of course, there is less information readily available for small companies – but this could work in your favour: having fewer competitors with smaller trademark portfolios means that a given filing by any of one of them speaks volumes about future plans.
Filings for marks in categories different from existing products may reveal that they are trying to offer a new feature to an existing product or have identified a growing demand - or even a new market to tap into.
Of course, trying to discern this by traditional trademark watching, only gives you a part of the picture. CI Sense presents information in context within your industry so that you can use it to watch trends and focus on brand competition. Our mission is to bridge the gap between trademarks and competitive intelligence.
We don’t just hand over raw trademark data. We ask the hard questions: what do you really want to know; is there a new competitor in your market; what are emerging trends in your industry? We combine automated indexing and categorization systems with human intelligence and expertise to provide the context that adds insight to trademark descriptions.
And you can compete as though you’re a big fish – even if you happen to be a size smaller.
