I would love to send you a signed copy of Brand Tuned, the new rules of branding, strategy and intellectual property if you’re UK based and are:

EITHER:

An Azrights client: OR

An agency or freelancer supporting businesses to promote or create their Brand.

Just complete this form to receive a copy of the book. Please include any unit or apartment number associated with your address as the post office site we use requires comprehensive address details.

The reason I want to send a copy to Azrights clients is that it’s important to manage the brand and its IP together. The book is a starting point to discovering how to better manage a brand.

Someone senior within a business should have enough understanding of ‘brand’ and its associated intellectual property to know how and when to take steps, such as by involving legal, or regulatory support when engaging external services to make changes to the brand, or to create a new website, or marketing campaign.

Every business needs a brand manager who is able to spot IP issues, and ensure there is no gap between branding and brand protection.

The value of a successful business invariably lies in its brand, and the mechanics of how brand value is protected and sold when a business changes hands is governed by intellectual property laws.

If you’re an Azrights brand protection client look out for your renewal email next week. This year we’re offering a multimedia resource at a highly discounted rate to equip your business to access, on demand, the essential information you need to better manage your brand and its IP.

Did you know that the Apple brand is worth a quarter of the market capitalised value of the company as a whole?

In the 21st century business environment, the assets of most businesses are digital. Unlike Apple, they don’t sell physical products, so, the proportion of their value that is reflected in the brand is even greater than a quarter.

While many small businesses are not a ‘brand’ in the sense that Apple is a brand, every business has a Reputation. While reputation and brand are not synonymous, for most practical purposes, reputation or goodwill is a useful shorthand term for better understanding a ‘brand’.

A business’ reputation is often visible to potential buyers because they may have heard of your business or its founder through word of mouth, or because they check out reviews, such as on Google or LinkedIn, before buying from you. Effectively, the reputation of a business is its brand.

That reputation is where the value of business lies because the business name is generally how people find you and learn more about your reputation before they buy. Your reputation is part and parcel of what you sell when you sell your business.

As for UK agencies and freelancers, one reason we would like to send you a copy of the book is that whether you support your clients to choose a name or to create a website or to do online advertising or social media or other promotional marketing, your work involves getting name recognition for your clients.

Many businesses are unaware of the legal checks to do before choosing a name and buying a domain. For example, in one case I encountered, a business spent considerable amounts of money getting traction in the search engines and on social media, only to have its domains confiscated following a domain dispute initiated by a competitor who successfully argued that the domain was too much like their trade mark.

It makes sense to check whether a business’ domain name is at risk from a trade mark perspective when you start working with a new client. They’ll thank you if you discover an issue that helps avert a disaster.

And just because it’s not compulsory to register a trade mark for a name you are using, doesn’t mean it’s sensible to not register one.

Trade mark registration, rather than domain or company name registration, is the way to claim rights to a name. Getting into a dispute with a third party who may be using a similar name to yours (and possibly damaging your reputation) can be expensive because arguing that you have earlier rights is never a simple exercise. Much better and cheaper to just register a trade mark for the name you’re building your brand around.

Given the importance of the name, we are well placed to partner with agencies, and freelancers to support them to do checks on their clients’ names and to secure their rights in a name, both in the UK and internationally.

Simply complete this form and we will post a copy of the book to you. Later we could also schedule a meeting if you’d like to learn more about how we can help you to better manage your brand and its IP. Alternatively, if you’re an agency, or freelancer, we could discuss the benefits we offer to partners.

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