Summary
The article is a decent first cut at an important element in brand building. Brands incorporate trademarks but are not the same. Trademarks signify source (that's why they are adjectives not nouns) but brands incorporate the history of a company, its reputation, customer service, quality etc. Often brands and trademarks are one and the same. As such they do more and are more important than merely selling product. They convey the entire message of a company. In addition, although some may not be aware, it is far easier to expand a trademark into additional products than it is to build a new one from the ground up. In these times, finding competative shelf space is made easier if the brand is already well known. Finally, in terms of protection, a cohesive, worldwide strategy to protect the brand is critical. Not only will such a strategy protect one of the major assets of a company; the money made from the sale of fakes goes to all the wrong people, in all the wrong places.
Analysis
My role is to design, and implement global strategies to protect brands around the World. We accumulate information, analyze it and act on it within the goals defined by the client and allowing for budget issues. There is a strong expectation in current situations that the issue of brand misuse, fakes, counterfeits, knock-offs etc. will grow as the economy tightens. With more out of work, and factories in China closing by the hundreds, one way to keep people employed is to let them go on making that which they were taught to make, except this time without authority. Despite all the cutbacks to budgets, companies must take a counter-trend view of brand protection and be prepared to spend more rather than less. Or, they will lose market share and never get it back.
