Guard Against Trade Name Dilution

Retailers such as Burger King, JCPenny, and US Bank. Retailer groups like the National Restaurant Association and U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Altogether, 40 businesses and 47 associations are fighting a proposal to dramatically expand the nature of internet Top Level Domain names. TLDs are what appear to the right of the dot, such as .com, .net, .biz, and .org.
     The proposal, from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), would allow almost any word to be reserved as a TLD. The problem for retailers is that they’d need to buy countless numbers of internet domains and stay alert to requests to create new TLDs, all this in order to protect against the power of the retailer’s business name being diluted. For small to midsize retailers, that would be a great burden.
     U.S. federal law protects against trademark dilution. The Trademark Dilution Revision Act of 2006, which amended prior legislation going back to 1946, allows for legal action when there is a likelihood of dilution, not just proven dilution. This is good, but if the domain name expansion caused such troubles, the retailer would be required to launch a lawsuit. Again, this is a significant burden for small to midsize retailers.
     Researchers at Rutgers University, California State University-Long Beach, and Ohio State University demonstrated the reality of dilution. They measured the proportion of study participants who think exclusively of one brand’s products when asked about a given brand name. They found that a single exposure to a logo similar to the logo for the given brand name, but for a different business, diluted exclusivity by about 35%.
     An antidote to trade name dilution is to maintain the strength of the association between your store name and your store image. To accomplish this, market in all the channels the shopper uses when engaging in searches that could end up with purchases from you. Remember to include these:

• Personal contacts. When people visit your store, be sure they’re exposed to the name in signage, shopping bags, what salespersons are saying, and more.
• Non-internet advertising. Use a full range of channels and have the store name in distinctive fonts and in a memorable logo design.
• Interpersonal contacts. Beyond social media are the face-to-face interactions your satisfied customers have with other consumers. Give to those customers business cards with the store name in prominence.

Click below for more:
Sound On When the Purchase is Completed
Shrink Brand Alliances When They Contaminate