Brand of gold

Interbrand said in its Top Performing European Retail Brands 2008: "Companies that place high importance on managing the economic value of their intangible assets, and primarily their brands, consistently outperform basic economic measures."

This statement should be particularly true for the insurance industry but, historically, the way the industry has used and valued its brands has not been consistent with employing a strong brand for market differentiation. But this is changing — especially in the retail market where the phenomenal awareness built by Compare the Market and its meerkat advertisements illustrates how a brand can be built and developed.

Brand protection starts at birth — if not before. As part of the creation of any new brand, thoughts on protection issues should take place. In the first instance this means ensuring any name and logo or design you choose is distinct, not being used by anyone else and will not be used in a way that might be confused with others. On the other side of the coin, you should also consider how easy it is to obtain trademark registrations for your chosen brand in the classes you want and what protection those registrations will actually give you, based upon the format of the brand you have chosen.

Conflicting issues

Issues with competing brands can come in many shapes and sizes — as shown by the Mutual of Omaha's recent settlement with Oprah Winfrey's production company Harpo. The company had been extensively using the phrase "aha moment" in its brand communications — a slogan practically identical to the "Aha! moments" one used by the talk show host on her programme to describe 'flashes of understanding'.

Mutual said it had conceived the slogan in early 2008 and encountered no opposition when it made its application to register the phrase as a trademark in the US; but Harpo argued the slogan belonged to it. So, it makes sense to keep an open mind when choosing a brand and to fully consider existing potential conflicts with your brand choices.

The marketing of insurance online is growing exponentially as companies seek to reduce the cost of business acquisition, and to boost their profile. But this is a channel that gives rise to a whole range of branding challenges.

The use of 'Google Adwords' to trade off other companies' reputations is also a growing problem, making it the subject of much controversy and debate in the industry and among regulators. In September last year, Google won the latest round in a legal battle against Louis Vuitton and other brand owners that are trying to stop the search engine profiting from their trademarks. An adviser to the European Court of Justice said that the practice of selling keyword phrases, such as 'Louis Vuitton shoes', to other businesses — including rivals — was not illegal under European law.

While the ECJ's current view is that consumers are sophisticated enough to tell the difference between companies, the Financial Services Authority is concerned that businesses are trying to misrepresent themselves in this way. The FSA has warned advertisers to be careful, saying: "Where the sponsored link is not in line with the search term used, and the website returned by the sponsored link does not accurately reflect the expectations created by the search term used, the sponsored link would not be fair, clear and not misleading," in guidance published by the regulator.

Term exclusion

It has also told advertisers to take advantage of the facility offered by search engines to exclude certain terms from the search terms they purchase. For example, with Google Adwords an advertiser can sponsor 'financial advisers' and list the term 'independent financial advisers' in its 'negative keywords'.

"Firms should be mindful of this when purchasing — or instructing media agencies to purchase — search terms on their behalf from search engine providers," says the FSA guidance. "They should also have adequate systems and controls in place to ensure they do not buy keywords or terms that result in misleading return results."

In addition to the creation and basic development of a brand, there are signs the insurance sector is starting to realise the benefits of investing heavily in proactive promotion of their brands — with companies such as Aon, Brit and QBE all undertaking major sports sponsorship agreements in the last six months, as part of a campaign to raise brand awareness.

From the sponsors' point of view these are significant investments and, while such agreements can be very valuable, they require companies to associate their brand with a third-party product, event or service. Consequently, companies must ensure their own brand is not damaged or diluted by the association.

Brand damage

The recent fall from grace of Tiger Woods has highlighted the perils involved in tying the reputation of your brand to that of another entity — with Accenture and Gillette announcing that the golfing celebrity is no longer the 'right representative' for their organisations. For Accenture, where Tiger Woods features on extensive billboard advertising in airports around the world, the cost of replacement advertising — in terms of creative work, space booked and physical production and removal — will be very high. While specialist death and disgrace insurance policies are available to cover these perils, they need careful thought about what constitutes 'disgrace' in every individual circumstance.

Creating a strong brand — from the development stage, through to promotion, management and active protection — is a marriage of legal, commercial and practical concerns. None of these can dictate to the detriment of the others if producing a valuable brand is the true aim, since they are all inextricably linked in the process.

So, should you wait to see how others go about boosting their brands or seize the moment to steal a march on your competitors? In the words of another Tiger Woods' sponsor — Just do it! Perhaps, though, not with Tiger.

Mark Williamson is a partner in Clyde & Co's corporate insurance group