Marketing
Issue No. 3 - December/ 2001/january
Protect Your Marketing Assets
by Dr David Corkindale
Most South Australians would associate ‘Brass Monkeys’ with Coopers Stout. Coopers have spent time and money building this association that adds distinctiveness to their product and thought that they implicitly owned this. That was until a West Australian brewery brought out Brass Monkey Stout! This and many other examples are a warning to marketers.
Many markets today are mature and slow—growing; the products and services competing within them offer much the same capability. The things that differentiate one offering from another are often small and intangible, but they can make the difference between profits and struggle. Many things can fall into this category such as shades of colours, smells, shapes, style of advertising and strong associations with memorable or distinctive things.
Some marketers assume that because they have used something distinctive for years, no one else can. You may assume you ‘own’ your point of distinction, but if that’s not legally true, then a competitor can either use it too, or seek to prevent you having exclusive use of it.
Just a few years ago a local designer decided to retire. He went round to many wineries and offered to sell them the rights to their labels! It came as a shock to the winemakers that they did not actually own these rights. They assumed that if they paid somebody to design a label then they automatically owned the copyright. The assumption cost them money.
What are the things that make your company, brand or product distinctive? What do your customers hold dear about you? Do you own these things? Can you stop others from using them?
Another example: for some years, Mortein flyspray used John Laws as its advocate in its TV advertising. Laws was lured to endorse a rival product, Raid. Mortein eventually won the ensuing lawsuit, but it was a close—run thing.
We can register our pack designs and our logo, but what about all t...
