Branding Consultants  

There is widespread confusion around Intellectual Property law, and a number of misconceptions.  One is that consulting a lawyer on Intellectual Property is appropriate after a branding project is completed.  The assumption is that lawyers are only relevant to help protect the brand once it has been created.  This is wrong because taking account of IP law is relevant in choosing distinctive brand elements such as names, music, images, shapes and so on.  Coca Cola’s iconic bottle shape, which distinguishes the company, and has done so for 100 years or so, is the result of careful IP management from the very early days.

Azrights realized there is a need for its brand consultancy service when it saw more and more businesses were failing to take advice early enough.  This can lead to infringement on the rights of others and a forced rebrand.  Even if they are not infringing on anyone else’s rights, entrepreneurs are in danger of spending far too much money on identity creation around non distinct names without first consulting a trademark lawyer.  Use of descriptive names has its place for very early stage businesses, but this is a short term strategy and would not be worth investing a lot of resources in having expensive logos commissioned or  a stunning website and trademarking the logo.

IP issues are fundamentally relevant to the creation of a brand. Like Coca-Cola, by taking early IP advice and carefully managing your IP you can build a brand that is distinctive and unique ultimately.  You can try out  your business idea by getting a brand that’s in line with an early stage business, where the focus can be on identifying how best to position your products and services and meet the needs of your target market rather than spending your budget simply on the visual identity, which is not necessarily the most important priority.

Creating a brand is much akin to following a recipe- not only do you need the right ingredients but they have to be added in the right order- when baking a cake you wouldn’t add the eggs before you have creamed the sugar and butter and much like this, only turning to IP law once you have finalised other stages of the branding process is the wrong order. If you don’t take account of IP law very early on when branding, you run all sorts of risks such as infringing on the rights of others, or ending up with a far weaker brand than you might otherwise have achieved.

This means that any branding project should have IP at the forefront of it. Therefore Azrights provides a branding consultancy service to help clients with their branding needs. By project managing your branding, and collaborating with marketing, advertising, design, communications and digital agencies who will work with us to take IP into account, Azrights offers a multidisciplinary and holistic approach to businesses looking to brand their products and services.

What next?

To make an enquiry please call us on +44 (0)20 7700 1414 or if you prefer you may use the form below. Depending on your requirements we may suggest an initial telephone appointment or free meeting. This is often the best way to assess whether we would be the right firm for you, and to understand the work involved, your priorities, attitude to risk, and desired timescales.

Watch Shireen Smith deliver her speech at the official launch of her book Legally Branded (available on Amazon), and read our blog where: Shireen Smith introduces Legally Branded, and explains the value of Branding Consultants