In today’s online world, it’s no longer enough for an ambitious brand to just have an attractive shopfront on the high street and a recognizable logo.
While they are important, the growth of the internet means that the whole world is now your potential customer base, so it’s important to give extra thought to how you market your business online.
However, with the internet being such a crowded space, there are a number of things you need to consider to minimise the chance of your brand’s reputation being damaged.
Launching your brand on the internet
Picking a name and an identity for your business and its products is hard enough, but it could get even more difficult if you become embroiled in a legal battle over trade marks. Carrying out plenty of due diligence beforehand is key, otherwise you may face an embarrassing and expensive rebrand at a later date.
There are a number of ways to check your brand name doesn’t infringe on another trade mark. The UK Intellectual Property Office and its EU and US equivalents are good places to start. All offer free online access to databases of registered trademarks, but you can always seek additional advice from an intellectual property expert just to be sure.
Choosing your name carefully is especially important when you’re starting a new business. Mondo, a new smartphone-based bank, recently announced it was changing its name following a legal challenge by an undisclosed company.
Protecting your brand
Once established, unfortunately, brands can also find themselves exploited online. Whilst the internet has brought about huge opportunities for businesses, it is inevitably rife with examples of malpractice. This can range from people acting carelessly or in bad faith, through to blatant criminality and fraud.
The ease of registering a domain can make it easy for opportunistic registrants to exploit other organisations’ brands. In addition to using online marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay, a common tactic is to register domains which are very similar to well-known brands, and use them to sell rival or related products, counterfeit goods or carry out more advanced cybercrime.
For example, last year somebody registered www.hallifaxbnk.co.uk, an address which may be easily misspelled and lead customers to a fake web page where potentially fraudulent activity could take place.
So how do you protect your brand from these exploitative domain registrations? In the UK, Nominet, which runs .UK, one of the world’s largest country code registries, offers an impartial Dispute Resolution Service (DRS) aimed at mediating disagreements and keeping them out of court.
A recent example of Nominet’s DRS involved a dispute between the Complainant Lucasfilm Ltd., LLC. and a Berkshire-based costume shop, which had registered a number of Star Wars web domains. It was ruled that the shop must hand the domain names back, to avoid confusing consumers who are looking for a genuine Star Wars site.
Nominet’s DRS handled 728 cases last year, saving parties over £7.7m in court costs. For non-.uk domain names, there is the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Process, and many other country-code registries offer a similar service.
Choosing a domain
An often overlooked yet vital piece of the online branding puzzle is the humble domain name. Your brand’s domain name can have a huge impact on how many customers you attract.
For example, more than three-quarters (77%) of Brits would rather visit a site that has a .co.uk domain name over a .com domain name. So if you’re planning to sell mainly to UK customers, this may be a good option to explore.
Alternatively, if you don’t want a country-code domain name, you could explore a generic top-level domain which identifies your business, such as .photography, .guru or .media. Be aware however, that generic domain names can also be used for illegitimate purposes, as demonstrated by the controversial launch of the .sucks domain. Buyers have already claimed some websites targeting global brands with a companyname.sucks domain.
Generally, defensively buying every domain name to prevent somebody from registering a critical or protest site isn’t a good strategy. In fact, Donald Trump did this, and it hasn’t stopped his critics from finding other ways to protest against him.
It’s much better to tackle them case by case if they arise, as if there’s a trade mark infringement, it should be reasonably easy to get the domain transferred or taken down.
It’s clear to everyone that the internet presents a massive opportunity for businesses to grow, however there will always be a risk of somebody trying to tarnish your brand’s reputation online, either accidentally or deliberately.
However, with the right amount of due diligence, some knowledge of basic trade mark law and an understanding of your audience, there’s plenty of potential to protect and grow your brand online.
