Brands that are weird – Avoiding the Waldo Paradox
The Ignite phenomenon is bubbling up throughout the world and it is happening within the state of Oklahoma as well (yes, even Oklahoma!)
Last week was the first Ignite Tulsa event and our own Emily Campbell dove into the fray with a talk entitled “How Not to be Waldo: Brands that Stand Out in a Crowd.” I may be a bit biased – but she rocked it!
Emily’s mantra of “Be Weird, Be Different and Think Outside the Box” is a great way of thinking about your branding efforts and the need to stand out in a crowd.
It is a bit unusual for an attorney to be thinking about branding – Emily may have some additional thoughts on that topic – but, when you think about it – it makes perfect sense. Trademark attorneys see the process at all stages – conceptualization (doing the clearance searches), design and development (filing intent to use applications), and product launch (filing statements of use), to name but a few.
As we say around here, the job of a good trademark attorney is to take you all the way from the minefield of cluttered competing corporate interests to the end point of bringing everything to a succesful conclusion – a customer buying the product and associating the product with the reputation and messaging you wish to develop. Dare I say it – taking it from a Mess to Yes™
As you saw on PHOSITA last week, the IgniteOKC folks are working on launching their first event and are looking for volunteers and thought leaders. The first planning meeting was last night – but there is still room for more help. Drop Emily Campbell an email if you are interested.
You may be interested in reading the following related posts:
This isn’t so unusual for an Attorney to think about branding… that’s what a trademark attorney does! On the contrary, I would expect an Attorney to be pushing for arbitrary and fanciful names, which she is doing. Such names are much easier to protect!
Stand out – Dunlap Codding you have achieved this!
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Congratulations.
The “Where’s Waldo” ref in the talk followed my reading of Wired’s article re their writer who tried to vanish and generated publicity along with teams hunting for him: http://www.wired.com/vanish/2009/11/ff_vanish2/
Do you have an example of a brand that was hidden only to be successfully revealed by brand hunters aka consumers?
The obligation here is to move the consumer engagement from passive to active.
An example that springs to mind is the little unknown restaurant who gets a crowd outside it, only to become a household name by word of mouth.
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This isn’t so unusual for an Attorney to think about branding… that’s what a trademark attorney does! On the contrary, I would expect an Attorney to be pushing for arbitrary and fanciful names, which she is doing. Such names are much easier to protect!