Bus 50 Advertising for Small Business
Business Names, Brand Names, Trademarks


One small thing that can be a big thing is your Business Name. You need to to choose, register and protect it. Your decisions don't stop there, however:

Will you operate under a fictitious name? Will you use your business name, some variation of it or are you choosing a new name altogether for your products and services? How will you protect the name? Will you have a website and will you register a domain name for the website? Can your naming choices help you draw customers to your business and sell products?

The answer to the last question is yes! A good naming strategy will help customers to recognize your business and its producst or services and will connect them as a potential solutions to their wants and needs. It will help prepare customers to learn your names and then learn more difficult and complex information about your business and its products, as well as associate postive ideas and attitudes towards your business and its products.

For a web business, familiarity and branding as noted above applies equally well. Addtionally, it is important that the customer recognize and recall the brand name as a web address or URL (Uniform Resource Locator), that is the path the customer might try to type in the browser window if they don't know your full web address. Registering your name as a domain name (DNS system)also aids in protecting your name from use by other businesses in a manner similar to a registered trademark.
click here for information on domain names

Your business naming strategy will include the following:

  1. Business Names
  2. Corporate Name
  3. Fictitious Business Name Filing (dba)
  4. Business Name, Mark, Symbol; Service Marks
  5. Trademarks and Registry (®, ™) and registration
  6. Domain Names and Registry
    http://www.cabrillo.cc.ca.us/~dambrosini/189Web/naming.html
  

Business Names

Naming Your Business or Products

Trade or Business Name - Used to identify a business as distinct from its products and services.  

Corporate Name - Name given to a corporation when it is formed. 

Fictitious Business Name - A business name different from the owner’s name(s) (including corporations.

Brand Name - Given to products and services to:

  • distinguish them from other products or services

  • allow customers to identify and find products or services

  • prepares customers to receive, store and recall information more readily

Trademark - a word, phrase, design or symbol that identifies a business’s products.

Service Mark - a word, phrase, design or symbol that identifies the provider of a service.

Logo - a particular artistic expression of the name or symbol.
Click here for classic Icons & Logos

Trademark Registry - a list of all trade and service marks registered with the Federal government. All States have trademark registries too; some have service mark registries.

It will cost you $245 to register your trademark with the Federal Registry. You need to do a proper and thorough trademark search which you can learn to do or hire a paralegal organization to do for you for $300-500 more. You will be safer with a trademark lawyer but will pay perhaps $1,500 or more. Also, register your domain name with an Internic accredited domain registrar. http://www.internic.net/regist.html

  • ™ is used when declaring a trademark under common law
  • ® is used when you have registered your trademark

Once you register a trademark, in order to maintain your trademark you must seek out infringements, issue warning letters requesting offenders to cease and desist use and prosecute in court if necessary.

In general, pre-existing Federal registrations have priority.

Branding

Stages of Brand Response 

  • Rejection

  • Non-recognition

  • recognition

  • preference

  • insistence

Strategies 

  • Individual

  • Family

  • Combined

  • Extensions: related products, unrelated products

Guidelines to Effective Branding

  • Short/simple

  • Benefits/position/features

  • Easy to pronounce

  • Distinctive

  • Suitable for multicultural use

Guidelines for Logo Creation

The consumer's "first impression" of your business or its products are often a logo. The logo may be seen through an ad, on the side of a building, on a business card, at a website or in many other fashions. The following list is a set of guidelines for creating a good logo. Not all these criteria can be met in every logo design.

  1. develop a company/product/service position (or personality) and differentiate your product from your competition
  2. create a “usage manual” to describe how the logo is to be displayed in a variety of uses:
    • signage
    • trade show booths, banners, small signs
    • letterhead, envelopes
    • business cards
    • building signs
    • color and black and white
    • ads
    • etc.
  3. make the logo unique, that is, be sure it will not be confused with other brands and company identities; don't risk lawsuits or loss of customers
  4. consider typeface, marks and combinations
  5. should it be made to represent multiple product types, business functions and diverse applications
  6. is it suitable for use across cultures and in international markets
  7. is the shape recognizable as an image or shadow (quick impression)
  8. are the colors planned to be meaningful, aesthetically pleasing and suitable for use across cultures and in international markets
  9. can the logo be animated
  10. does it reproduce well in various media
  11. can it be embossed, beveled, etc.
  12. how will it look when illuminated, fazed, photocopied and, in other ways, reproduced
  13. how does it reproduce on textured and untextured paper and other surfaces
  14. will it work when silkscreened
  15. can it be miniaturized and blown up?