Product indentification *

The value of a good name

In business, what is the value of a good name? Manufacturers of certain products known the world over value the identification marks, such as brand names, on their goods at a million dollars a letter. But is it worth while for most manufacturers to adopt an identification policy? Is it profitable to adopt a name, sign, or symbol by means of which consumers will know that a particular commodity is the product of a certain maker?

The magnitude and the complexity of modern business seem to make necessary the adoption of some identification policy, the use of a brand to connect in the consumer's mind the product with its maker. What are some of the factors which dictate the adoption of such a policy? The success of certain well-known commodities is only one factor. There are others which seem to dictate that the great majority of products should be in some manner identified.

Competition and advertising demand branded goods

Two of these factors are evident to the most casual observer: The increase in competition, and the growth of advertising. Competition has brought forth a myriad of products in many different lines. Some method of identification is required to distinguish one from the other. As soon as a single manufacturer brands his product, others making the same type of commodity must do likewise.

Competition is further increased by the struggle to maintain brand leadership. A further stimulus to this competition and a factor in itself in making some sort of product-identification necessary, is the tremendous growth in advertising of all kinds. The maker of a commodity who advertises to the consumer is forced to adopt and exploit a brand to identify his product.

Consumers have become brand-conscious

The working of these forces has made the consumer brand-conscious to the point where many purchasers buy, not products, but brands. This consciousness has been accentuated by the appearance of many commodities for widespread and everyday use which are highly technical in construction: The automobile, radio, electric refrigerator and scores of appliances that most of us use and know little about in detail.

The consumer, because of his lack of special knowledge, can form no prepurchase judgment as to the quality of the product or its fitness for his needs. Hence, he buys either on the basis of good will toward the individual dealer or confidence in the maker of the product. If the product is unbranded, the consumer cannot identify it with its maker. To meet growing competition, to make the most of advertising, the up-to-date manufacturer who is at all directly dependent on consumer buying must adopt an identification policy, must brand his product.

Results identification may accomplish

Before deciding what form or combination of forms of identification he will use, the maker of the product should clearly recognize what results he may hope to realize from such a policy. An identification mark may call from the consumer three distinct responses: Consumer recognition, consumer preference, and consumer insistence. A consumer will normally select from a shelf some article whose identification mark he has somewhere previously noted, on a package or in an advertisement.

The number of products bought on the basis of price or style rather than by brand is constantly decreasing. Preference is stronger than recognition. A consumer who prefers a product sufficiently to ask for it by its brand name or other identification mark, will not accept a substitute product without objection.

The third effect, insistence, is achieved if the purchaser will accept no substitute. Tests have proved that brand consciousness of widely advertised commodities has been highly developed. Arrow collars, Eastman Kodak’s, and O'Sullivan rubber heels are cases in point.

The four identification forms

If the manufacturer decides that the achieving of these responses or effects is worth while in the case of his product, he must then choose the form or forms of identification he will use. There are four common forms of identification: The brand name, the trademark, the slogan, and the trade character. A product may be identified by one or more of these forms.

The types of brand names

The brand name is merely a name which serves to identify, favourably if possible, the product. There are at least four well defined types of brand or trade names. As an identification mark, the brand name may be merely the name of the concern making the product, for example, "Goodyear" tires, "Buick" automobiles, or "Packer's" tar soap.

The name may be taken from a geographical locality; "Canada Dry" ginger ale, "Cape Cod" cranberries, and "Boston" garters are examples. In the third case, the name may supposedly reflect the quality of the product, as "Holeproof" hosiery, Swift's "Premium" ham, or "Royal" baking powder. Finally, the brand name may be a catchy, artificially-created compound, as "Walk-Over," "Sunkist," "Keen Kutter," or "7-Up."

The characteristics of an effective brand name

An effective brand name must measure up to certain qualifications, the most important of which are :

• It should be easy to pronounce, spell, and remember. (Holeproof.)
• It should be distinctive, not easily confused with any other name. (Kodak.)
• It should be appealingly suggestive of the product and, if possible, of its use. (Keen Rutter, Ad-Justo-Lite. )
• It should comply with legal requirements. (Personal, geographical, or descriptive names cannot be registered.)

How highly an effective brand name is valued is evidenced by the elaborate efforts, often including prize contests, that are made to secure one.

The marketing of more than one brand

A single brand is undoubtedly preferable for an entire line of products if all the products are similar and of equal quality. It is on this principle that food manufacturers often use a single brand name or family name for the whole line. "Heinz's 57" is a good example of a family of products.

One brand name is also sufficient for the entire line if only one quality is manufactured, irrespective of the type of product. Certain circumstances, however, justify the use, by a manufacturer, of more than one brand name or trademark. Different brand names are used where different grades or qualities are made by the same producer; the products may even be competitive. A second brand is often used to meet price competition.

The product sold under the regular brand name may not reach a sufficiently wide market. Competitors enter the field to take this market, often with goods of cheaper quality and hence of lower price. The manufacturer does not wish to cut the price on his first-quality brand; nor does he wish to fight the competition with a cheaper product under the same brand name. Hence, he makes a second brand, lower in price—sometimes not in quality—to meet the competition.

This is often called a fighting brand. Again, an additional brand may be justified for marketing through outlets other than those regularly employed, that is, jobbers, chain stores and mail-order houses.

Can a single sales organization successfully handle two or more competing brands? Experience seems to have demonstrated that unless the organization is almost perfectly set up and manned, the practice is unsuccessful. However the question is debatable; particular circumstances constitute an important factor.

The General Motors Corporation maintains separate sales organizations for its different makes of automobiles. Remington Rand, Inc., on the other hand, has merged the selling forces of competing brands of its products.

The trademark

Not infrequently the brand name is also used as the trademark. The trademark however, may be something quite different : A design, a signature, the combination of a design and the brand name.

A trademark made up wholly or in part of a design that gives a picture effect may be more valuable than just a brand name. There are innumerable illustrations of the fine quality of trademarks : The "Dutch Boy" white lead, for paints; the "Dutch Girl" eternally chasing dirt, for a cleaner; the "Cream O'Wheat Chef," for a breakfast food; the "Dromedary Camel," for sweetmeats.

A number of tests have been made to determine the effectiveness of trademarks and their design. Psychologists have found, for example, that persons and faces are more easily remembered than objects, and that objects are less easily forgotten than actions ; that form is more easily remembered and recognized than colour, although colours are more accurately remembered than numbers. Recent tests show that the order of recognition and recall is : Pictures, forms, words, syllables.

Qualifications of a trademark

The qualifications of the trademark are much the same as those for the brand name, plus the additional quality of describability. The growth of packaging has made it especially essential that a trademark be of a design which one person can easily describe to another when recommending the purchase of the particular brand. This factor definitely increases salability; not infrequently, for example, a customer desiring "Dromedary" dates will ask for the package "with the picture of the camel on it."

The use of trademarks on packages has made necessary designs that are simple, easily reproduced, easily recognized, easily explained, and that are at the same time colourful and attractive. To capitalize fully a trademark, wide advertising is, of course, required. Any reputable advertising agency can give suggestions as to the procedure. The registering of brand names and trademarks is a legal matter, and a competent attorney specializing in trademark and patent work should be consulted about the steps to be taken.

Static versus flexible identification forms.— The brand name and the trademark are virtually static forms of identification. Any change in their use is difficult to make and runs the risk of general loss of value and of the forfeiture of legal protection of the mark.

Sometimes, however, changes are necessary; the design on a trademark of a soldier in the uniform of 1898 is now obsolete because a soldier is at present associated with the uniform of to-day. Civilian clothes, particularly feminine apparel, have changed almost as radically in the same period.

The slogan

The slogan is a catch phrase, which by constant repetition stimulated by advertising, becomes associated with a certain product or its maker. "They Satisfy," "Have You a Little Fairy in Your Home?" "Ask the Man Who Owns One," "More Miles per Gallon," are examples that have become famous. The good slogan should be more than a catch phrase ; wherever possible it should give certain information about the product to intensify the desire for the product's use.

A slogan is often an expensive investment. Considerable advertising of a varied character is usually required to make people familiar with it so that they will connect it immediately with the product. If the slogan is changed—and its flexibility is supposedly one of its assets—a new advertising campaign is required.

A slogan, furthermore, is difficult to register in the patent office due to its tendency to be less individual than a trademark and therefore not so much an item of private right. Faced with all these considerations, the manufacturer should use particular care in the choice of a slogan.

Slogan policies

If a slogan is expected to last over a long period, it should be remembered that products and conditions change. A specific slogan may have to be changed accordingly. The slogan must also be rational. A discriminating public is becoming perhaps increasingly critical. If so, it may ask whether virgin or reworked wool went into "The Cloth That Is 100% Wool," or demand to see the formula for soap that is "99 44/100% Pure."

If a slogan cannot be made irrefutably rational, the emotional type may be more effective. The ideal emotional slogan appeals to the pleasure which the consumer will enjoy while or after using the product. This type of slogan is exemplified by "They Satisfy," "The Flavour Lasts," and a host of phrases displayed by billboards, car cards, magazine and newspaper advertisements, or packages.

The use of the trade character

A trade character is a humanized figure, tending sometimes towards the caricature, which symbolizes the product or its uses, or both. It is ordinarily employed in the place of, or as a supplement to a plain, fixed symbol. The fixed symbol is frequently used in connection with the brand name to make up the trademark.

A trade character with an effective slogan may also be used as the trademark. "It Chases Dirt" is the phrase used, in connection with the Dutch Girl in the blue dress and carrying the stick, symbolizing one of the cleaning compounds. The combination is as well known as any other trademark.

Trade characters can, of course, be highly animated and used in changed positions, like the Wrigley sprites. These features may make the trade character and identification form peculiarly suitable for certain products, even if used only as a supplement to the regular trademark.

Some disadvantages of flexible identification forms

The use of the trade character is often an effort to capitalize on people's desires for entertainment. They do watch good trade characters perform their antics. But does the entertainment thus furnished make purchasers of the spectators? If the trade character and the slogan are to be used flexibly —changed often—in advertising, they are likely to become costly forms of identification.

Caution should be exercised in employing them. A particular word of warning must be given about the use of the trade character. An over-imaginative artist in creating and modifying the trade character may lean a bit too strongly towards caricature. People like humour—but humour tempered with a little dignity.

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