Branding…and Branding Within the Brand

Your Product…What should you Brand?

So, let’s start with the most obvious answer. Your product will need a brand name. And, while there are a variety of critical elements that make up your brand’s “identity” we are focusing only on brand naming and, more specifically, what to brand beyond the “name brand.”

There are many factors to consider when developing your product’s brand name, including its positioning, the brand’s personality, market strategy, target audience, and competitive brand strategies, just to name a few. In addition, there are important, meaningful “product features” that contribute to the overall “value” of your brand…critical ingredients that represent key competitive barriers that serve to blunt competitive marketing efforts and lead to your brand’s ultimate market success. So, here’s the question. Since these features are such key contributors to my product’s perceived worth, should they be branded and trademarked, as well? The simple answer is YES.

Serious consideration should always be given to “branding” these very important product features as an important and valuable extension of the brand name. At the same time, you must be sure that an “extended” branding strategy complements and supports the larger product brand, and does absolutely nothing to compete with, negatively impact, or diminish its value.

When deciding if a specific product “feature(s)” should be branded, here are a few things to consider and keep in mind.

• Is the feature of real, measurable consequence to the product’s value?
• Would the anticipated success of the product be considerably less without this particular feature?
• Is the feature currently or soon to be patented?
• Is another company’s “branded” product or technology part of your product to support and differentiate your brand and, therefore, already included your brand’s identity (e.g., Intel^® inside)?
• Does the feature represent a major component of the product’s “positioning” and one that represents a real “point of differentiation?”
• Does the competition have the same feature or similar benefit, but is simply not branded? If so, branding your feature may be of little value.
• Does the feature’s brand name feel/sound like a natural extension of the larger brand name? For example, perhaps the new name is tied to a new technology
• Does it overshadow the larger product brand name?
• Longer term, will other, more innovative features be added to the product in the future, ones that will provide more branding opportunities? If so, what should happen to the current, supporting brand names? Perhaps the answer is to simply focus on the newer features, with less emphasis on the older ones already imbedded in the customer’s overall brand perception.
• To further complicate the strategy, will the branded feature include its own unique logo type, symbol or other graphic design element?
• Once the feature brand name is chosen, can it be trademarked?

It can be very easy to overwhelm your product with too much branding. A feature-rich product is a marketer’s dream, but only when such features are properly leveraged through an effective branding strategy. Excessive branding and trademarking of the features tied to a single product can make it difficult to create a clear, cohesive and effective communications strategy. Ultimately, the result can be a muddled message and one that only leads to confusion among members of your target audience.

Of course, there are no right or wrong answers when you decide whether or not to brand specific product features. But, using the criteria above should help guide you along the way. Ultimately, it is the customer who will decide if your overall branding strategy truly enhances their perception of your brands and the value they represent.