Good advertising combined with a distinctive trademark can help create a successful brand. In my blog entry entitled Acquiring and Maintaining a Trademark” (See https://www.chicagotrademarkattorney.net/acquiring-and-maintaining-a-trademark/)
I wrote about the advantages of adopting an arbitrary trademark. An arbitrary mark would be a mark such as APPLE which when it is used on computers or cellphones means nothing but has all the meaning in the world when it is applied to fruit. Initially, when you select such a mark, it would have no immediate significance to consumers. You would affix it to your product and display it in your advertising and it would, by itself, accomplish nothing in selling your product other than identifying that product as coming from you and not your competitors. However, if you pick the right trademark and combine it with the right marketing and that brand could become famous. Here are some examples of combining a strong creative trademark with creative fadvertising.
A ”mustang” is a free-roaming horse of the American west that first descended from horses brought to the Americas by the Spanish. Mustangs are often referred to as wild horses. See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mustang&oldid=849322344 The first successful affordable American-made sporty car, the Mustang, was based on the Ford Falcon, an economy car that got 30 m.p.g. in 1961. But redesign it, name it after a wild
horse and create the right ads; a mermaid for the male consumer and a hunky cowboy for the female consumer and you have America’s best-selling sports car.
“Cahoots” is defined as “colluding or conspiring together secretly” which is a theme that is much in the news lately. So, if you’re going to brand a new line of ice cream flavors why not play on that theme with the trademark, SCOOPS IN CAHOOTS, with flavors like “Bust Out the Butterscotch” or “This Mint is Money” as one of my clients did.
And if you are going to come up with a name for a virtual assistant that sits in your home, listens to your voice and lets you order a pizza, even in Australia, why not call it by the distinctive easy to remember and “friendly sounding” female name ALEXA, as Amazon did, a girl’s name meaning “helper and defender of mankind.” See http://www.babycenter.com/baby-names-alexa-177.htm
If you can think of some good ideas and have a product or service to offer, let me know and I’ll help protect your brand from intellectual property theft.
