- All right, good to see you again.
Now we are talking about branding.
And marketing, and how to protect your brand.
If you watch the previous episode,
you know exactly why we need to trademark
and protect our brand.
Now, if you haven't, make sure you click on
the icon and watch the previous episode.
So, Andre, let's continue the conversation.
So we're talking about branding and why it's important.
- So from a trademarking perspective,
a unique brand is better than a great brand
because as long as you can own something unique
that's great, but how do you actually come up with
a great name, great tagline, great logo,
would you have any advice in that direction?
- I would say you need to look at, at least my own process,
I look at what's out there in the marketplace, right?
When it's some of the brands that are out there.
What are they saying, and how can I come up with
an angle that maybe, could be very unique,
could be like the opposite, depends on what I'm selling.
But also, it could be something that's a proven concept,
but how can I add onto it?
So one of the marks that now we own,
which, as you know, is our YouTube program.
It's called Tube Your Own Horn.
Right?
So if you think about, I take the concept
of toot your own horn, which is promoting yourself.
We know exactly what it means.
You talk to a friend, hey, man, you're tooting
your own horn, it means like I'm promoting myself,
I'm shamelessly marketing myself.
I take that word, I simply change it to tube,
which is then symbolized, YouTube.
So there you go, that's a very memorable name, right?
Something like that, so taking an existing idea,
something that's a cliche or something, a metaphor,
something that's very common,
that most people know, and I just change it a couple words.
Or sometimes, another way you can combine words together.
Right, combine two different words together,
and you have a very unique word, right?
But it's not so much just you come up
with like a cute name.
Having a cute name, that's not gonna build your business.
But having a name that's memorable,
it's easier for people to remember your brand,
so when they do see your brand again,
they see your logo again,
oh yeah, I've seen that a couple times,
and then hopefully that would get them to
come back to you or be aware of your brand, right?
- That reminds me of what my father,
who was a famous composer in Russia used to tell me.
Actually, he's the reason I do intellectual property.
So he used to tell me, if you wrote music
and it doesn't sound like anything out there,
it's crappy music because people are not
going to understand it, they're not gonna love it.
So it doesn't mean you shamelessly steal from others,
but it has to have some common point
that people could reference and understand
where you're coming from.
So I guess the Tube Your Own Horn is an amazing example
of how that works.
Because it, you know.
- They get it. - It sends the reminder
to people and oh, I get it.
- I know, kind of, even though I don't know
what your company does, they can imagine,
I think roughly, that's kind of what you do.
Now, in terms of branding,
do you have a story where, maybe a company, a brand,
that they've grown to a certain size,
but they didn't trademark their name,
and then it ends up being a pretty bad story.
- Since we're in Vancouver,
there was a local brand here that grew really big.
It was called Vancity Buzz.
- I know the owner, I've been to his office.
- So there was a news aggregator,
I think they've been around for eight years.
Building up a huge client base over several
hundred thousand people, which in Vancouver,
which is a small place, is a big deal.
And they realized that BuzzFeed,
another aggregator, trademarked their brand in Canada.
And once BuzzFeed got their trademark approved,
they reached out to Vancity Buzz and said,
"Hello, that's our name."
And so Vancity Buzz had to rebrand,
and they became Daily Hive.
So all that marketing, all that good will
that they've built around the brand was gone.
- For many years. - Like this.
- For many years.
So imagine someone can come in and if they own
the mark they could do that to you.
Also, you need to think about registering a trademark
is not like getting a domain name.
It is not you go in, you type in a domain name,
it's available, boom, you pay a couple bucks
and you get the domain name.
It's not like that.
It is a process.
Walk us through that process.
Like how long usually does it take?
How long, what's my expectation and time frame?
- Yeah, certainly not like a domain name.
You should have both the domain name and the trademark,
but trademarks take about a year and a half, two years,
from start to finish.
Sometimes takes a little less,
but you should not go into this expecting
that it's gonna take you a few months.
Probably 14, 18 months is a good average to think about.
And you file an application,
and then you sit and wait.
Because the trademarks office gonna take them
several months to even look at it first.
And about seven out of 10 applications
get rejection initially.
So the trademarks office finds something in there,
they're like, no, we don't like it.
And they explain to you, and then you have to have
somebody respond to them and either fight it,
explain why they're wrong and you're right,
or you come up with some ways to tweak it.
Usually it's a combination of the two.
This is where the real work begins
because sometimes, you know, sometimes I tell people,
because they're like, "Well, you know,
"there's so many companies, you can file your trademark
"for next to nothing, even you can file your trademark
"for next to, you know, for yourself."
And like a monkey can file your trademark application.
That's the easy part.
The real work begins after you hear back from
the trademarks office and they say no.
- And you have to understand, filing the trademark
doesn't mean you own the trademark.
There's a big gap.
Filing, you just did the paperwork, you do it online,
but then afterwards, the back and forth, right?
- It means you say, "I want to have this trademark."
That's all it means.
- It doesn't mean you have the trademark, right?
And it takes a long time,
and usually it takes longer than you think.
So by the time you think you're gonna launch
your product or service in two, three, five,
six months from now, well you got to file your trademark.
Now explain to me.
Let's say I'm going to launch a product in six months.
And I know the trademark process takes like 12 to 18 months.
I file it today.
So does that mean I need to wait to have the trademark
before I start marketing, or just in the process
of filing my trademark, that gives me just even
some form of protection.
- That's a great question.
So even though we said that once you file it,
you know, it only means that you want to have
this trademark, but it also means
that it's timestamped at the trademarks office,
so nobody else can come in and successfully register
the same trademark after you did it.
So you're the first in line,
and yes, you have to go through the process
to fully own it, but the trademarks office
is gonna stop everybody else who's trying to copy you
or come up with the same trademark.
So what everyone else does, which is,
in the first episode, I mentioned, Uber, right?
Two months before they launched.
They filed the trademark, then they launched.
- They launched, yeah. - Then it takes a little while
for them to get it.
Now they have the business and they have the brand.
- Got it.
- So with a product, same thing.
File a trademark, actually, let me take one step back.
Make sure you can own the trademark.
- Yes, it's trademarkable.
- Right, if you just file a trademark,
it doesn't mean anything,
but if you've done your research,
and you know the chances of it going through,
then you file your trademark,
then you launch the product,
or the service or the program, whatever it is,
and then you get the trademark.
And actually, another thing I often tell my clients
is that just the fact that you filed for
a trademark, it shows the world that you're serious.
It shows commitment because if you didn't think
that you'd be in business, that you'd be around
in two years, you wouldn't be filing your trademark.
So it goes to credibility.
Credibility in your own eyes
and also in the eyes of others
because they see that you've bothered to file a trademark,
that you're gonna be around.
- And at first when I learned a lesson from being,
you know, being talked to, got this letter,
like all this stack, being shut down, basically.
From that experience then I learned about trademark.
And I've used a number of like legal firms
and things like that dealing with trademark.
And one of the reasons, myself, why I have
Andre's Trademark Factory takes care of all my trademarks
it's because what they charge, they are not cheap,
but it's a flat fee.
Versus I've used lawyers, legal firms,
where they, it feels like it's cheap, but it's not.
Because they charge you per hour.
So when they are talking with the trademark office,
back and forth, they were billing you.
Oh, I craft a legal letter, they bill me, right?
I got a phone call, they are billing me.
- I thought of your file. - I thought of your file.
I opened up your damn file, I'm billing you, right?
So, it's all this stuff, I'm like,
I thought, my budget, it's gonna cost me this much,
and it cost me this much.
So with Andre it's always a flat fee,
and it's got a strong guarantee, right?
And I feel very comfortable.
OK, here are all the trademarks I want.
And I know that he will do, his team will do
the very best to get me the trademark that I need.
That, to me, gives me a lot of comfort as a business owner.
So that's very, very important, for me, personally.
Second thing is, it actually doesn't cost you
as much as you think.
Because most people think, oh, protect,
because they think, in terms of protecting their brand,
it's like a fortune 500 company thing, right?
Oh, it's only for big corporations.
I'm a small business, right?
I own a little restaurant or I have a website,
I don't need to protect my mark.
No, it doesn't cost you like tens of thousands
of dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Believe it or not, it only costs you
a few thousand dollars.
It depends on which country.
That you want to protect your mark.
Actually, that's a good question.
So, it depends on where you want to do business.
So you might want to file your mark in,
let's say if you're doing business in the US,
definitely US.
If you're planning to sell to Canada,
you file your trademark in Canada.
Because owning that trademark in US,
it doesn't give you protection in Canada.
Someone can use the exact same name in Canada
or a different country where they are,
they can use your name, right?
- And if you make physical products
and you, for example, make them in China,
if you don't get a trademark in China
and somebody else does, that somebody who's
got your trademark in China can stop you
from exporting your products from China.
So you're stuck, you're gonna have to find
a new manufacturer, so that's another trend
we're noticing because believe it or not,
Canada 50,000 trademarks filed every year.
US, 500,000 trademarks every year.
- 10 times, roughly the same 10 times the population.
- In China, 7,000,000.
- Yes. - 7,000,000 trademarks
filed every year.
So there's a lot of crazy stuff happening there
and if you're even thinking of building something
in China, make sure you own the brand there.
- I'll give you a perfect example.
If I remember correctly, Trump, right?
Trump is trying to, of course, like different things
that he does, you know, even before president,
he's trying to get into China, do business,
do development, all kinds of branding and licensing deal,
but guess what?
Someone else owns the trademark Trump.
Some guy owns the trademark Trump in China.
So that is preventing Trump from using
his Trump brand in China.
So just imagine that, right?
So that's a very real problem.
So if you are planning to sell to,
it doesn't matter if it's China or not,
but different countries, you need to protect
your mark in those countries, right?
- I will say, if it's an important source of revenue,
you've got to own the brand there.
Simple as that.
Home country plus all the other jurisdictions
where it's important.
- Yes, where you think you're going to expand there.
If you own an internet business.
For me, of course, US, Canada,
those are the main ones, right?
- That's the one we're always doing.
- Yeah, that's like the bare minimum
amount of protection.
So if you are thinking about growing your brand,
not just the marketing strategies.
Because sometimes you get confused.
What's the difference between branding and marketing?
The way that I see it is, branding is your reputation.
It is your, it's who you are, right, your brand.
It builds trust with the marketplace.
Marketing is what you do, the ways,
the strategies you use to bring in customers, right?
To attract customers and keep a customer.
So you need both.
Having a strong brand, and this is one lesson
that I want to leave you with.
Back then, even when I was learning from my mentor,
right, my first mentor Alan.
He is, he believes in what I call direct response marketing.
That's that school of thought, right?
That it's about long form sales letter, right?
It's ugly sales.
It is about words.
It's not about brand.
You don't need fancy logo, you don't need,
you know, fancy brochure, it's all about
just direct response.
So let's say what you see on TV.
All the marketing you do, direct response marketing
is designed to get a response.
I want someone to pick up the phone to buy.
I want someone to click on this button to buy, right?
I want someone to send me back the order form.
That's direct response.
I want a direct response from the consumer.
And branding is all bullshit.
That's the school of thought that I've been taught.
What I realized is, one day,
I was reading all kinds of books,
and I've studied a lot of marketing books.
Somehow I picked up a branding book.
And that guy is used to be a very high level executive
for Coca Cola, he was talking about branding.
And I was like, this is fascinating.
So you have two school of thought, right?
Branding and direct response.
All the direct response entrepreneurs, marketers,
all kind of look down upon branding.
They think this fancy shit just doesn't work.
That's for big company, small business,
you don't need branding at all.
And I was like, but.
If this is the truth, right?
This is like what works, this is the most powerful
like way of marketing, and it is very powerful,
shouldn't all these guys who are doing
direct response be the richest, biggest companies
in the world, yet they are not.
But they might make a few million,
tens of millions, but they're not making
billions of dollars.
However, the companies are doing branding, yes,
you have the biggest companies in the world.
The fortune 500s, all branding.
So now I'm confused.
- Well, let me add to that. - Yes.
- [Andre] Why are you driving a Bentley?
- [Dan] That's right.
- [Andre] Why are you buying Tom Ford suits?
- It's branding. - It's the brand.
- It's the brand.
- It's not the car itself is--
- Is 10 times better, no.
It's part of a brand. - It's the brand.
- It's the brand.
So-- - That's how
we make decisions.
- That's exactly how I make decisions.
So that tells me, then, OK,
there's something that this group of thought,
this group of marketers, they don't know.
So then I started studying branding.
And I find it very, very interesting.
This is just my opinion.
When you can combine this direct response with branding,
you've got something very, very powerful.
Because when someone who doesn't know you,
they need marketing, you need direct response
to get them to buy, to make a profit.
This is the faster way to make money.
Think of this as like short term money, right?
But for someone who knows you, the brand that
you're building where it would help them
to make that decision without thinking about it.
Let me give you a perfect example,
that I rest my case.
Let's say there are certain brands
that you buy when you go to a supermarket.
Right?
Maybe a certain, it's toothpaste, right?
It's shampoo or it's certain types of coffee,
or whatever it is.
Pretty much you and I, creatures of habit,
we go to the supermarket, we buy the same brands
all the time.
In spite, there may be so many other choices.
Sometimes you might try new things here and there
but usually you buy the same type of brand,
same type of product, from the same company.
Why, because you recognize the brand,
you trust the brand.
You shorten and basically eliminate
the decision making process.
A brand, a powerful brand does that.
Versus direct response.
Every time you're trying to play the convincing game.
Let me tell you why this offer's the best.
Let me tell you why you need to buy right now.
- Features, benefits. - All the features benefits
and that's powerful, and that's all cooperating,
but with a brand, they don't do any of that.
You look at the most powerful brands,
they don't like, Bentley is not sending me
a 30 page sales letter convincing me
why you need to buy a Bentley.
No, if anything, they make it the opposite.
I want to buy a Bentley, you gotta wait three months.
What do you mean I need to wait for three months, right?
Wait, the model that you want, the color you want,
the interior you want.
It's so difficult, right?
Or you want to buy a Ferrari, right?
You can't just walk into one type of Ferrari,
no, you gotta wait.
I gotta wait?
It's a very different thing.
So you think about direct response like push,
and branding as pull.
So that's my school of thought, right,
you can combine the two.
- And I think that's why they say
first you work for the brand,
and then the brand works for you.
Exactly this.
- It's exactly this.
And now, of course, I'm such a big proponent
of like personal branding,
that the power or personal branding
just by think about Air Jordan.
Nike, it's a pair of shoes,
but when you add that personal brand
with a perfect like, an athlete,
who is the idealistic person,
that people look up to.
From there, Air Jordan, of course,
you know I've got a bunch of Air Jordans, right?
It's powerful, powerful.
- And even with your personal brand.
Right, when you were starting out,
everyone knows the story, right?
When you were like Dan who?
- Dan who, yep.
- Nobody's asking that now.
Because first you worked for the brand,
and now the brand sells for you.
- The brand sells, it's just the name itself
carries a lot of weight.
That's why I trademark it.
The brand itself gets me in the door.
It passes, it gets me through all the gatekeepers.
In fact, at this point, it's more people
approaching me than me approaching people.
But you can see as the brand becomes more popular,
myself, from experience, becomes more and more popular,
things get easier.
The costs of acquiring customers is lower.
Opportunities, it's more abundant.
It's very very powerful.
Now, Andre, I want to do something special for my viewers.
If they have any questions, I will put a link somewhere
on here or in the description.
If you have questions about branding or you're thinking
about, should you trademark or can Andre
Trademark Factory help you trademarking your brand,
and what's investment and all that stuff,
click the link there, you can book a time
with one of the Trademark Factory advisors, right?
- Strategy advisors. - All the strategy advisors.
And just looking at your brand, looking at business.
What help do you need, right?
I want to do this for you.
Don't make the mistake that I made with my first brand,
where I learned it the hard way.
Good that it didn't actually cost me any money,
but it could have cost me a lot of money.
So branding, trademark, they are very, very important.
If you're expecting you're gonna build a successful business
protect it today, don't delay,
and don't wait 'til it's too late.