Protect Every Inch of Your Brand

By Guest Writer, Wizard Academy Graduate
Sonya Winterbotham

PS. by Craig Arthur

Brand essence is the beating heart of your business, but as an asset, it’s often the most undervalued. Business architecture is just as important as the products you sell… even more so – because those products depend on it. And today, it’s vital you protect it – This means more than registering a business name – brand essence is design, logos, fonts, images, positioning statements and yes, even colours.

Australia has already seen major corporations slugging it out in the courts over colour… BP brought Woolworths before a judge over the use of the colour “green” in signage at Woolworths discount petrol retailers – A landmark case that BP lost . While Cadbury saw red over Darrell Lea’s use of the colour “purple”… After an initial dismissal of that case, three Federal Court Justices have ordered a new trial . And now, I wouldn’t be surprised if two more big companies head to court over the colour “yellow”.

XXXX Gold is Australia’s market leader in midstrength beer, and Australia’s second largest beer brand… It also happens to be the biggest brand in Lion Nathan’s impressive portfolio … So it’s no wonder Australia’s other major brewing company wants to fill it’s schooner full of profits.

Yes there’s a new midstrength beer making its way to the nation’s parched lips… Problem is… You may not actually realise its out there. With a quick trip to your local bottle shop you could easily mistake this new performer as XXXX Gold, when it is in fact VB Midstrength.

The clever marketers over at Fosters Group have used remarkably similar colours (yellow, red, black and white) as Lion Nathan’s Queensland gem… Why?

Consider this… Most beer drinkers are “product territorial”… that is… they buy the same product week in week out from the bottle shop… At a bar they’re more willing to spend a couple of bucks trying a new beer (particularly if it’s at a “honeymoon” price) but at a bottle shop few beer drinkers will fork out $32 on a carton of beer they haven’t even tasted.

Picture Friday afternoon at your local bottle shop… It’s 3.40 and a bloke waltzes in with a spring in his step and the thirst of ten men… He lunges into the depths of the beer igloo (bottle shop cold room) and shoves his favourite yellow carton under his arm. It’s not till he gets it home that he realises he has in fact just bought a carton of VB midstrength instead.

Not one to return a carton, that he’s probably already torn open and unloading into his beer fridge (also known as the kitchen fridge minus the veges)… He tries this “foreign” brew… Downs a few coldies… thinks “that’s not half bad”… And by the time he gets through the carton he’s converted.

“Not half bad?” He thought… Heck I’d say as far as marketing goes, it’s better than “not half bad”… In fact I have no doubt this is a strategic ploy from Fosters Group to inch their way into Lion Nathan’s stronghold on the Australian midstrength market share.

Some may call it deception, some ambush marketing, others call it smart strategy from a company that has realised midstrength is one of the fastest growing beer markets and largest in Australia. And boy didn’t they choose their words carefully in a media release that speaks of VB Midstrength as “easily distinguished from the original by its gold colour scheme”… Pity they can’t say the same in regards to XXXX Gold .

Will it work? Or will it be fought out in court? Time will tell. But no matter how big or small your business is, this lesson shouldn’t be ignored - Protect every inch of your brand… Otherwise like in the case of XXXX and VB… Coldplay might just have got it right… “And it was all Yellow”.

PS. by Craig Arthur:
One of my clients had an agency write ads and book media for his business. The agency did this for a few years and was paid handsomely each year for their efforts. Growth was slowing so Wizard of Ads was called in to help Optimize both the message and the media schedule. The previous agency then preceded to try and hold the client to ransom. They would not let him use the tag they had written in any new ads, unless an annual fee was paid (forever).

Who owns the copy and tags of your ads? This is something you need to determine upfront and get in writing.

What did we do? Did we cave into the threats? No. We dropped the tag. Did it harm sales? Business is up 25%... so NO.

 

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