Our ways2brands
offer you true choices.
Providing brands is about variety and making the right choices. Our approach is based on a wide spectrum of and at times even surprising brand sources, rather than merely relying on a prefabricated creative process or a single way of sourcing a brand and name solution.
Making the right choice on a brand or a brand name is of ultimate significance: You decide on a brand or a name only once for the whole life of your business, product or service. And possibly, this will be a decision you are only facing once in your own lifetime. The new brand will be the hallmark of your own personal story, your career and a vibrant facet of your personal achievements and joy. The way to the right brand is a significant act for the future of the brand and for you, the decision maker, but even more important for your audiences who will opt for and identify with your new brand.
Brand Acquisition
Brand Acquisition
The term ‘Brand Acquisition’ includes purchasing a brand and other rights that could become the foundation for development or further growth of an existing brand or trademark. We divide our ‘Brand Acquisition’ services into three categories:
Registered Trademarks (TM not in use).
The category ‘Registered Trademarks’ concerns trademarks that are registered, but currently not in use, either as national or international trademarks. Ideally, the classes of goods and services these trademarks cover, the range of registration options (countries/registers) and the brand character (message, associations, style, phonetics, conceptual fit) should all fully correspond with the search profile required by the respective client. Extensive screening of trademark registries and profound analyses of potentially interesting brands are key to discovering conceptually appropriate, previously registered trademarks. BRANDWAY approaches brand owners, clarifies whether they are prepared to sell their trademarks and supports trademark acquisition processes.
One of the major advantages of this approach is to enable the access to conceptually adequate trademarks that have successfully survived their opposition period. After following legal due diligence, the residual risks of using such trademarks commercially are relatively low. Anyone intending to launch a new brand with a tight timeframe should certainly consider this approach as a viable option. Alternatively, this approach can be combined with other ways to help you to find your next brand name.
Brands (TM in use).
Our use of the term ‘brands’ refers to intellectual property assets that are not only protected as trademarks through an adequate registration with various national and/or international patent and trademark authorities, but are also considered as being ‘living business assets’. Brands are thus associated with what they actually stand for, with the products and services they offer and the brand experiences made by audiences at multiple touchpoints. For brand owners, brands are intangible assets generating business value by ensuring future cash flow and customer loyalty.
The acquisition of a brand is recommended if buyers intend to enter new product or price segments, want to gain access to new regional markets or new customer segments, or plan to enhance their brand portfolio by buying market shares at the same time. Searching and sourcing brands that are actually for sale is a demanding and elaborate process. After all, successful brand acquisition largely relies on compatibility with the business strategy and ambition of the relevant brand owner.
Brandway searches, identifies and evaluates potentially attractive acquisition targets and accompanies the acquisition process with appropriate partners.
Company Name (incl. shell companies).
When starting a new business, entrepreneurs in search of a company name might decide to purchase a ‘shell company’ which provides a name and a complete company registration in the preferred legal form in the country of their choice. In case the party interested in acquiring a shell company and is intending to use the shell company’s name for its business, it should properly evaluate whether the name actually can be used for the intended business purpose without violating existing name rights owned by third parties. A company name that comes along with the shell company package does seldom include any corresponding trademark protection appropriate to brand the intended products and services of the company so that these can be marketed in all the countries of interest. As a consequence thereof, it is as well necessary to evaluate whether the company name actually is legally available as a trademark for the intended products and services in the relevant trademark registers.
Furthermore, due to the many linguistic and cultural sensitivities in the various markets of the world, shell company names should be carefully checked to avoid linguistic and cultural disasters.
Brandway supports your search for an appropriate company name including a shell company registration. In case it should prove that the company name is inappropriate to brand the business and related products and services, we will search for alternative ways to either equip you with a registrable brand name or an already registered trademark, which can be transferred to an existing, registered company shell thereby replacing the current shell company name.
We evaluate potential company shell offers with regards to their legal trademark qualities and potential linguistic and cultural deficiencies with the support of our external IP law partners and linguistic experts.
- Registered Trademarks (TM not in use)
- Brands (TM in use)
- Company Name (incl. Shell Companies)
Brand Naming
Brand Naming
Regardless of the target – for a company, product or service – the development of a new brand name is one of the most exciting and challenging tasks of branding. Besides meeting conceptual requirements, legal and cultural/linguistic aspects need to be considered. A new brand name should not just be ‘free to use’, it rather has to meet all the requirements for a successful trademark registration covering a clearly defined scope of goods and services and allowing the filing of the name in all the trademark registries of all the countries where the products and services are going to be marketed in.
In addition, due to increasing cultural and ethnic sensitivities in many regions of the world, it is an absolute necessity to be very careful with new names. They should not be associated with any cultural or verbal ambiguities, neither literally nor phonetically.
New brand names should not be regarded as the solo artists of branding, rather they are connected to a brand claim – the first statement about a brand – and they often represent the starting point of a whole nomenclature system. Brand name, claim and product nomenclature are therefore the essential pillars of the new brand’s verbal identity. They stress the brand’s positioning, help establish orientation and express the structure of the brand’s products andservices.
All these tasks are supported by a team of verbally creative people, including wordsmiths and copywriters, in cooperation with linguistics experts and experienced patent and trademark lawyers.
- Corporate Brand Names
- Product Brand Names
- Nomenclature
- Claims
Brand Creation
Brand Creation
Today’s dynamic markets provide the possibility to broadcast and sell a brand’s offer via web and social media in real time. The opportunities to rapidly build presence and recognition of new brands created from scratch, fueled by innovative business ideas and value propositions have never been so good. The development of a brand embraces a great many facets, however, the source of a powerful brand is always the key insight and idea on which the conclusive brand concept is built. To us, relevance, attractiveness and distinction are the essential parameters to developing new brand concepts. We find ways to authentic brands and translate them into visual and verbal identities – advancing from appropriate names to claims and brand language, from unique logos, graphics, colors and font systems to characteristic imageries.
The Brandway approach aims to attain convincing creative solutions, not by merely relying on a single ‘multipurpose’ branding firm or design agency. Instead we seek a diversity of creative resources, developing compelling visual and verbal solutions, regardless where they come from. We believe that if communication between creative partners is managed accurately, there are boundless opportunities to develop something genuinely original and new for you.
- Brand Concept
- Brand Verbal Identity
- Brand Visual Identity
Brand Revival
Brand Revival
Trends in lifestyle and fashion are often contemporary quotes and interpretations of styles, designs and values that were characteristic in past periods, such as the twenties, fifties, sixties or seventies. The popularity of utilizing a bit of ‘déjà vu’, related to the style of a certain period and its associated moods, can motivate the reviving of an authentic brand from the past. Rather than just picking quotes from the past and injecting them into a living brand, that may in fact have a different legacy, a revived brand is an original and can creatively fuse elements of the zeitgeist with today’s ways to communicate. The revival of a brand that hasn’t managed to survive the winds of change, e.g. caused by management failure or that lost its consumer relevance due to lack of product innovations, or became a victim of brand portfolio restructuring, could still be a valid option for an imaginative and enterprising brand seeker.
Nonetheless, a revival requires diligent assessment to find out whether there’s a genuine opportunity for the brand. Quite a few brand revivals have become painful failures after an initial success, because they lacked conceptual relevance or financial stamina for a long-term success. In the end, the relevant question is whether the former brand is merely a ‘the corpse of a brand’ in the eyes of the beholder or is actually a ‘sleeping beauty brand’. The key challenge is surely to update the brand idea, write a compelling brand story and create a product offer that links to the past through an appealing and contemporary product offer.
For our clients, Brandway traces and seeks potential brand candidates for potential revival. We analyze current ownership, check the quality of the current legal protection of the brand, clarify the remains of the brand’s equities, explore potential space to position the brand in today’s consumer and competitive context and define potential product categories and product features as part of a unique brand experience. If the preconditions for a revival are promising, we develop a full brand revival concept and support new brand owners to achieve their goals with support by appropriate partners.
- Brand Discovery
- Brand Health Check
- Brand Concept
Brand-In-Licensing
Brand In-Licensing
In-licensing known brands is the opposite of developing a new brand or stretching your own brand. The in-licensing method provides licensees with the rights to use an existing and well-established brand, building on the brand’s inherent strength, its genuine positioning, attractiveness and, ultimately, on the experience of target groups that are already familiar with the brand.
Brandway explores diverse brand options within the spectrum of a predefined license search profile. We evaluate the brand’s principal fit against a number of key criteria and check whether potential brand candidates’ trademark registrations have already been protected for the relevant products and services in the countries of interest. After initially shortlisting brand candidates, we contact brand owners and find out whether they are generally interested in discussing a brand license. We gain an initial understanding of the basic prerequisites for a brand license cooperation. In further steps, we clarify the commercial, contractual, product and marketing related concepts in line with the licensors’ plans for the brand. We support commercial realization of the in-licensing program in cooperation with the licensee, IP lawyers, product designers and communication firms.
- Brand License Exploration
- Brand Licensor Search
- Brand License Realization
Brand Partnership
Brand Partnership
To us, brand partnerships include a variety of forms of tactical and strategic brand cooperation. Tactical partnering with an appropriate brand to jointly create compelling promotional ideas and concepts is a powerful tool to activate the brand and increase the sale of the products promoted. Strategic, long term oriented brand partnerships to unleash a brand’s potential may even go beyond the licensing of a brand.
Brandway seeks brand partners that ensure a high mutual brand fit with the sufficient ‘creative space’ to formulate a promotional idea or other marketing and communication measures, resulting in a genuine ‘co-created’ brand experience. In regards to strategic brand partnerships our focus is on identifying capable partners that enable the brand to realize opportunities by entering new product and market segments.
- Brand Partner Exploration
- Brand Partner Strategy
- Brand Partner Search
- Brand Partner Concept
- Brand Partner Realization
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