BlackBerry’s Trademark Search Lesson and the Fall of the BBX Brand Name
December 8, 2011
In October, Research in Motion announced a new operating system called BBX, which was touted as the launch that would save the BlackBerry brand. On December 6th, BlackBerry replaced the BBX name with BlackBerry 10.
The reason for the change was simple. In fact, the problem with the BBX brand name should have been discovered very early in the new branding initiative. A software company in Albuquerque, New Mexico named BBx already owns the trademark for that name.
I typed “BBX” into the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office’s online search tool and found the 15 matches (see the search results in the screenshot below), which includes at least 3 similar live marks in the tech-related industry, including BBx out of New Mexico. It took just 5 seconds to get that info. It’s amazing that BlackBerry invested so much time and undoubtedly, money into the BBX brand launch only to realize after making a public announcement that their use of the name would be contested.
According to The New York Times, BBx didn’t know that BlackBerry was planning to launch a BBX-named operating system until that fateful announcement was made by Research in Motion to an audience of developers at a San Fransisco, California conference in October.
On December 6th, Research in Motion was served a temporary restraining order from BBx and pulled the name. However, it’s unknown how or if Research in Motion will fight the restraining order or just let the name go. With the public switch to the BlackBerry 10 name, it’s probably safe to assume that the BBX name has been forgotten, but you never know.
The lesson to learn from this story is one that I’m actually surprised needs to be repeated, but I’ll say it again — always begin any brand naming effort with a trademark search. Research in Motion didn’t even need to rely on its lawyers to learn that the BBX name would likely be one that wouldn’t qualify for the company to trademark. Other companies working in similar markets already own the name.
Red flags warning Research in Motion of potential problems with the name down the road should have gone up immediately. Now, the company has to go back to the drawing board with the BlackBerry 10 rebranding initiative. That takes time and money, and given Research in Motion’s recent losses to its competitors in the smartphone market, that’s time and money that could surely be used more effectively in other ways.
Image: uspto.gov
Facebook Insights Now Shows Negative Brand Feedback
December 6, 2011
If your brand has its own Facebook Page, then you should be using Facebook Insights to track analytics related to its performance. In late November, Facebook rolled out a new feature to Facebook Insights that you should begin to include as part of your reputation management efforts. Facebook Insights now tracks negative feedback.
It’s not a perfect tool, but it’s worth reviewing. Just log into your Facebook Page admin account and click on the Facebook Insights link in the top left sidebar. From there, choose an individual post and click the Engaged Users link to see the data that’s currently tracked. You can learn about how many people gave you negative feedback on your post as well as how many people hid your post.
While this information is fairly cursory at this point, it can help you get an idea of what kind of posts are disliked enough that people are actually making the effort to hide them or post negative feedback about them. Look for trends in types of content that are getting the virtual thumbs down from large groups of your followers.
When people make an effort to dislike something, they usually really, really dislike it. Apathy typically results in people simply ignoring a post, but hiding posts or responding negatively are signs of things going wrong that you need to address.
According to a report from AllFacebook.com, Facebook hasn’t rolled this feature out to all Pages yet, so if you log into your brand’s Facebook Page and can’t find it in your Facebook Insights data yet, keep checking. You should see it soon.
In the meantime, keep publishing useful content that is relevant and meaningful to your target audience. With that strategy, you should be better positioned to avoid negative feedback.
What do you think of the new Facebook Insights feature to track negative feedback? Leave a comment and share your thoughts on this new source of data for Facebook Pages.
Image: Flickr
The Future of Email Marketing
December 3, 2011
A couple of years ago there were predictions that email would die at the hands of Facebook and Twitter. It’s nearly 2012, and email shows no signs of dying anytime soon. In fact, a new infographic from Visible Gains shows exactly how email stacks up against Facebook and Twitter in terms of number of messages, spam, and users’ plans for each in the future.
The infographic shows us that there are approximately 2.9 billion email accounts globally versus 750 million Facebook accounts and 300 million Twitter accounts. Of course, more people have multiple email accounts than Facebook or Twitter accounts.
A similar gap exists in terms of the number of emails sent or updates published on Facebook or Twitter each day. According to the infographic sources, 188 billion email messages are sent each day versus 60 million daily Facebook updates and 140 million daily Twitter updates.
You’re probably wondering how email spam factors into these numbers. The infographic data suggests that 45% of all email is spam but only 18.5% of all email is spam that actually reaches recipients. This number includes graymatter as well such as unwanted email newsletters, alerts, and so on. On the other hand, the infographic shows that 79% of Facebook users believe that spam is a problem and 49% report that they frequently see content in their News Feeds that appears to be suspicious and could be spam.
You can click on the image below to see the full infographic at a larger size.
[Infographic courtesy of Visible Gains]
What can brand managers learn from this infographic? First, email isn’t going anywhere, so it’s premature to consider shifting large portions of your marketing budget away from email. At the same time, there are a lot of email messages sent each day. The infographic shows that an estimated 3.4 million email messages were sent per minute during 2010. Brand managers need to spend more time and effort creating targeted messages and offers and sending those messages to the right audiences.
This applies on Facebook and Twitter, too. The tool is different but the concept is the same. In other words, fundamental marketing theory lives on regardless of the media. The three Ms — market, message, media — still apply. In fact, with the number of messages people see every day, the 3 Ms are more important than ever.
Have you modified your email marketing investments and strategies since Facebook and Twitter debuted? Leave a comment and share your thoughts on the future of email.
5 Reasons Internal Brand Building Must Be a Strategic Priority
December 1, 2011
Over a year ago, I wrote a post on the Corporate Eye blog about the importance of internal brand building. In the post, I provided 10 suggestions for creative ways you can build your brand among employees. Unfortunately, many companies are still failing in this area. If your employees don’t believe in your brand and support it, why should consumers?
Still don’t believe internal brand building should be a strategic priority? The 5 reasons below just might change your mind.
1. Increase Motivation
When your employees believe in your brand, they’re is a natural increase in morale and productivity. If employees feel good about the company they work for, the brand their efforts support, and the work they do, those positive feelings translate directly to a positive impact on your company overall.
2. Increase Personal Accountability
If employees understand the brand promise that they work to support and how their efforts directly affect the brand’s success and fulfill consumer wants and needs, they’ll develop a stronger sense of personal accountability. In other words, they’ll take greater pride in their work, and they’ll want to deliver better results. In a nutshell, they’ll care.
3. Increase Word-of-Mouth Marketing
If your employees believe in your brand, they’ll be more likely to talk about it to friends, family, and anyone who will listen. They’ll advocate the brand online and offline to anyone who will listen, and they’ll guard it against naysayers. You can’t buy that kind of dedication, support, and positive publicity.
4. Increase Communication
When employees feel like they have an important place in the brand’s success and feel like they’re truly part of something greater than themselves (i.e., meeting consumer wants and needs), they’re more confident in sharing their thoughts and ideas. This increased level of open communication can lead to fantastic new innovations and opportunities for your company. It can also help to raise potential red flags before they turn into disasters.
5. Increase Talent Recruitment and Retention
Who doesn’t want to work for a company where the employees are motivated and happy? When your employees speak highly and openly about your brand, your company has a better chance of increasing retention rates and attracting new talent.
Image: stock.xchng
Collaborating with Activists: Catalyst for Change
December 1, 2011
The Corporate Responsibility and Reporting conference wound up with a session from a panel of activism experts talking about how companies should respond to defuse a potential crisis before it blows up.
The description of the activist strategy was fascinating. Having identified a potential issue, and done their research to establish the scale and detail of the problem, they will target brands that they see as a catalyst for change: either the market leader, where potentially the most publicity is available, or the laggards, where potentially the most change is possible.
The first approach will be a fishing letter raising the problem; the purpose of this is to establish what your likely response will be – will you call in the legal team, pass the letter to PR, or hide the letter at the bottom of your inbox?
If a respected organisation such as Greenpeace have sent you a letter like this, it is because there is a problem… hiding won’t help, and may trigger an active campaign.
The activists advise:
- don’t ignore the letter
- do acknowledge receipt
- do investigate the claim
- and call them to organise a meeting with as senior a member of management as possible.
Interestingly, they say:
- talk directly to the activists
- don’t send a lawyer or your PR company, as doing this is likely to confirm to the activist group that there is indeed a serious problem and that you have something to hide.
Better by far is to work with the activist group, visiting the field with them to see the problem. Then establish an action plan and communicate your progress against these targets. Not only to the activist group, but also – to aid transparency – publicly.
Best of all would be to have established a good working relationship with the activist organisation in advance – and if CSR is ‘in the DNA’ of the organisation, then they would have such relationships in place.
Transparency about the challenges an organisation or industry faces would deflate any potential campaign in the future; and, just as in the case of blogger outreach, relationships with respected organisations might mean they come to your support if you are criticised unfairly by other – perhaps less respectable – activist organisations in the future.
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