Trademark Filings & Brand Launches
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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.
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.
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.
