I like to help people. Generally speaking.
So I note that some search engine cleverly delivered someone to this blog four times with the phrase:
“can you patent brand image”
I find this slightly confusing as I’m reasonably sure that I’ve never discussed patents on this blog. However, in response:
No, you can’t.
Patents are used to protect inventions, ie. product design. FYI, they usually need to take an ‘inventive step’ to solve a problem. ‘Inventive step’ means ‘not obvious’. (read: at discretion of the judge) Once you’ve patented an invention you can take claims against people trying to register similar ideas.
What you probably want is a trademark.
This allows you to protect phrases, made-up words, images…basically all of your branding. Other people can register similar trademarks, as long as it won’t be deceptive.
Assuming you find me again, hope that helps. Of course, this is ridiculously simplified and you should look for your country’s IP authority website at the very least.
Filed under: 1
After my rant on the AMI’s use of AusPOST direct mailers (’If you seek AMI’) it seems almost fair that the other day an iPhone user saw my slightly less advanced phone, said “Hey, you might be more interested in this” and slid an AusPOST flyer in front of me.
Karma; sometimes things get returned to sender.
Filed under: 1 | Tags: CSR, branding, gen y, strategy, culture, Carbon Planet, carbon credits
Too often, when I ask representatives of corporations (in the wide-eyed innocent manner only a prospective graduate can achieve) what their CSR program is the answer is a resounding “Errr…”
This is most disappointing when one of the key parts of their marketing pitch to ‘Gen Y’ is that they are socially responsible.
I’d like to look at this from a branding and strategy perspective.
If one of your reps didn’t know about one of the other ‘five basic tenets’ of your business, say, client service, you’d fire them on the spot.
The best way to communicate the values that your company wants to represent are through the actions of the people that make it up. Increasingly, due to societal pressure, companies are throwing ‘the community’ on a list of things they value. But how can staff embody company values if they don’t even understand them?
As more and more companies get on the bandwagon, CSR will shift to being a hygeine factor and the motivation will have to come from interesting concepts and authentic execution.
If you are going to go for CSR programs, it’s NOT just a ‘role’ that you can palm off to one person in corporate communications. It’s not a profession, it’s not a function. It’s part of company culture.
Otherwise, you end up with the situation I described earlier. For the students you’re trying to attract who care about CSR and want to know you’re doing it, that would be an ‘epic fail’ (to use ‘Gen Y’ speak).
All it takes (imho) is training and dialogue. This is why I’d like to see companies like Carbon Planet not just offering carbon credits and consultation but also training for entire organisations.
Make sure that your employees have an idea of what your company is doing. (Especially if you’re in an ‘evil’ industry like oil.) Better yet, an understanding. The feeling that through little extra personal effort they’re part of an organisation which is helping the community gives employees something to feel good about.
At the very least, please, brief them before sending them out to represent your company.
–
I’d like to add something for evangelists of CSR: it’s important to remember that when you’re talking to people outside of the CSR community the things that are obvious to you may not to be obvious to them.
It’s a constant sales pitch. You need to convince them in a way that doesn’t make them hate you.
Sweeping ‘obviously we must do this’ statements, absolute refusal to discuss other points of view, spam; they’re annoying and they give others who don’t want to listen the perfect excuse to brush you off.
If you’re going to call for action, how you’re communicating is just important as what you’re communicating.
Filed under: 1 | Tags: art, Design, film, marketing, SAFC, South Australian Film Corporation
The South Australian Film Corporation wants to revolutionise film.
The Australian film industry, unlike the American and Indian behemoths, does not churn out mega-productions. ['Australia' doesn't count.]
What Australian film offers is a completely different product; arthouse dramas, gritty portrayals of suburban life and a voice for Indigenous stories. So why are we using the same distribution models?
I went to a presentation by the CEO of the SAFC a few weeks ago. They’re trying to encourage more low to mid level budget film-makers to come to South Australia. For emerging artists it’s a cheaper location with no sacrifice on scenery.
But there’s no point having great films being produced if they’re consistently battling the norms of distribution and performing under budget.
The current model is one you’d be familiar with. Films make most of their revenues in the first week of showings, and a failure to make it big or receive good reviews within that time mean that it’s doomed. This means key factors of success are; the budget for pre-release promotion, the reputations of the actors/director and most of all the distribution. They need to be reaching as many theatres as possible at convenient times.
Indie films rarely have any of the three.
They rely on word of mouth, reviews and awards to build their reputation. They suffer from not having the budget to be shown at regular times in larger cinemas, which means that they do not register in the mass consciousness unless they win awards. Even if they do manage a win at Cannes, the inconvenience is enough to put off all but the most enthusiastic.
I’d love to be able to watch more indie movies…but they are never available when I want to see them. Trying to find a time to see ‘Samson and Delilah’ was difficult, and it’s been deemed a moderate success.
So please, it is time for a new film distribution model. With Bigpond movies starting to introduce home movie viewing and broadband access picking up over the next few years, they need to ‘capture the long tail’ and look beyond the norm that movies need to be seen in a theatre. Release indie films online, gain audiences and save money.
It’s a big step. But surely the example of Youtube shows it can work.
Filed under: 1 | Tags: A Current Affair, ACA, channel nine, Channel Seven, copyright, Hype Machine, Masterchef, Today Tonight
A quick observation that tonight 7’s current affairs stories were using lotto music in the background (um, but the jackpot was yesterday?) and 9’s current affairs cooking competition feature was using the same music as 10’s Masterchef.
Both complete coincidences, of course.
I find this interesting having just studied copyright, passing off and ‘misleading and deceptive conduct’… I don’t think either are quite close enough to attract legal action but it would be interesting to see if they could…
[In a related key, check out Hype Machine - it compiles music which is blogged then allows you to rate and see which is the most popular. Presents some nice alternatives to the mainstream so you can discover more songs riding the long tail.]
Cadenza.
Filed under: 1 | Tags: beauty, FMCG, L'Oreal, marketing, mascara, Maybelline, Revlon
So, you thought the toothpaste people were evil for making you consume more by making the hole in the tube bigger?
As an addict, I say this with regret, but…
Mascara is really one of the biggest marketing cons of all time.
Does it really make your lashes ‘10x larger, 10x bigger’ with ‘longer lasting lift’?
[Oh wait...I've heard that somewhere else before...]
Let’s be absolutely honest, girls and boys. All that mascara does is coat eyelashes with coloured stuff. The darker colour makes lashes more noticeable, particularly the tips which are too thin to be seen normally. Add a coat of gloop and you have instant volume.
It’s like putting spraypaint on a spiderweb. It doesn’t *actually* have any effect on the lashes.
[Trivia: One of the first successful mascara products was essentially coal dust mixed with Vaseline.]
Not to say that there’s no product differentiation; you still have to worry about factors like clumping, smudging, how well it holds shape and whether the brush gives smooth coverage.
Pretty much all the rest of the claims are made up.
My favourite con is the double-ended mascara with a white ‘primer’ and black ‘mascara’.
It stands to reason that if you give your eyelashes two coats of mascara they’ll look thicker. Less women get these kind of results, mostly because they can’t be bothered.
‘Primer’ solves this. You might notice that it’s always white. This is so that once you’ve applied it you need to apply about twice as much product so that you don’t look like a freak who has black and white eyelashes.
So it DOES make your eyelashes look thicker…because you’ve applied about three times the usual amount of product.
The pure evil in this is that it looks like you’re getting more per stick thing and being charged accordingly. But no. On comparison of my mascaras, the normal tube contains 6.2mLs, compared to 3.5mLs each of primer and mascara (which will be used twice as quickly).
But no matter. We’ll continue buying it, because it promises us a better way of life…and if we just keep thinking that, it will.
Let’s do a little word association. Just let the first responses flow.
AMI -
DM -
World War I -
If you’re anything like me** your responses might be something along the lines of; ‘do you want longer lasting SEX?’, ‘direct message on Twitter’ and ‘the last scene from Gallipoli’.
Hence my confusion that AMI sent me a DM with a World War I theme.
So I opened it:
What they want you to see:
The heroic charge in a last-ditch battle. The potential for miraculous recovery against the odds. The triumph of those who give it all they’ve got. The Aussie battler winning out with that true-blue digger spirit. A letter to spark intrigue.
What I see:
A letter which isn’t addressed to me. Details of events I am not historically knowledgeable enough to recognise. Amazingly good handwriting. Blah blah blah. What?
What would Ogilvy say?
Where is the call to action? What kind of direct response marketer are you? I don’t even know what this is for. Change that copy now. *sounds of a red pen scratching violently*
I can accept that they still like direct mailers. I can accept that the metaphor is, on deeper contemplation, potentially inspiring for marketers in the current economic climate.
But I just can’t accept that this is the best direct mail AMI can do. If I hadn’t known about the theme of their conference (yes, it’s for a conference) already I would have been completely confused. Not every recipient is going to be a curious uni student like me with the time and inclination to write a 500 word rant discourse on the subject.
Why did they do this to themselves??
A small indication of why they chose this medium might be found in the fact that they are sponsored by AusPOST, which has been trying to push the direct mailer revival. So much so that they’ve just introduced this new form; a piece of paper that folds in half and sticks to itself, whilst remaining easy to peel but not sticky to the touch. It’s like a post-it note, but 30 years later.
This particular sample has also been sent around to businesses as an example of the new product, as I found out from the marketing manager for an international retail chain…once I’d jogged his memory by blathering on about it for several minutes.
I am guessing that this mailer was done either heavily discounted or free. The AMI may think there’s no costs…but they just spent their credibility.
I am saddened to add that it was an AMI rep that asked me, on seeing my business card, whether I work for WordPress…
I want to like you AMI, I really do. But sometimes I have difficulties taking you seriously as a professional body and I know I’m not the only one.
**Hopefully for you this is not the case, but for argumentative purposes I request that you degrade yourself a little.
Filed under: 1
I used to think that the worst reflection you ever have to see of yourself is the morning after a big night, usually in the 5 minutes between guilting yourself into getting up and pressing Ctrl+Z on your 90 degree rotation.
But I might just change my mind. No, the worst reflection of who you comes from those ads that come up on the side of the page which are targeted to the content you’re viewing (your own Facebook page, for example), your surfing habits, and any other information on you they can dredge from cyberspace. Those ads, according to a script, are a reflection of who you are online.
I’m still working out what I did to deserve ‘diabetes in your family?’ followed by ‘when will you kick the bucket?’ and ‘how to lose cellulite in 30 days’. The sober light of the computer screen is not very friendly…
Sigh.
In pre-exam panic, I appear to have completely relinquished my capacity for critical commentary. Though apparently not my ability to alliterate.
Small mercies.
Speaking of small mercies, those chained to the office lifestyle should check out ‘Dead Under Fluorescent Lights’; I’ll give you a head start on my favourite post.
