One issue with creating a distinctive and successful brand design is that recognition too often is met by copycat designs.
Despite all the hard work, innovative thinking and investment behind a successful brand design there is often little that can be done to protect that from evolving into similar, unbranded products. Even worse these are frequently sold at a lower price, undercutting your market share.
As Nestlé has found, in a high profile case, a distinctive shape and brand design is not always enough to guarantee trademark protection.
Can you protect your brand identity?
While KitKat has successfully trademarked its ‘Have a break…have a Kit Kat’ slogan it has failed to have its distinctive four-finger wafer bar recognised as a trademark under intellectual property laws.
Chocolate wafer snacks that snap in two are everywhere – and there is nothing Nestlé can do about it other than rely on the quality of its product and the brand recognition it has built up over the last 80 years.
Another example has seen Cadbury fight for the best part of a decade to trademark Dairy Milk’s distinctive purple packaging – failing to convince the Court of Appeal.
However, trademark protection can succeed with the right brand design as Toblerone proved by winning its battle to claim intellectual property rights. The Swiss manufacturer successfully argued that its mountain-inspired chocolate triangles are unique enough to be protected against imitations.
Use unique brand design to stand out
Protecting the identity of your brand design – and creating a product that is instantly recognisable – is vital to standing out in the marketplace and engaging consumer loyalty.
The ultimate aim in distinctive brand design would be creating a package/product that is synonymous with a field of goods, but that has its property rights protected.
From the very start of the brand design process considering innovative, and even radical, shapes for products and their packaging will help to push the product into a field of its own.
Identify a gap in the market using a category audit that could accommodate a complete rethink design-wise, opening the way to creating a brand so unique it could secure trademark protection.
Focus on shape and other distinctive elements at the very beginning of the brand design stage and build on this to create a product that is distinctive and has a clear identity.
Hopefully this will pave the path to creating a design that stands out to shoppers and gain instant brand recognition as your creation.
For brand design with distinction get in touch with Brand Britain.
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