A recent post on the Graphic Design Blog showed the results of their readers top five logos of all time.
I guess I really wasn’t that surprised to see the Apple logo sitting at number one.
Although I am old enough to remember the original Apple Corps logo used by the Beatles pop group. Apple and the Beatles: The End of a Long and Winding Road?
This talk of logos got me thinking about the power of brands and trademarks in protecting products and services.
The harsh truth about business, is that if you are successful you will have competition, even if you have an invention protected by a patent.
An example would be the Dyson vacuum cleaner, whose Dual Cyclone technology is protected by patents, and yet the courts have allowed a somewhat similar looking cleaner from rival firm VAX to compete – Dyson loses design case.
My favourite brand of all time would have to be Marmite yeast extract spread.
This is not because the logo or image are particularly strong, but because since the creation of its secret recipe in 1902, it has managed to maintain a virtual monopoly, with the only rivals being Australian Vegemite and Swiss Cenovis. With sales of 60 million jars a year at over £5 each, one would assume this a market to attract heavy competition.
However, the Marmite brand is so strong that no-one seems to be trying, or certainly succeeding in competing.
As with many products not everyone is a fan, and Marmite have very cleverly used the strong reactions to the flavour of the spread in their recent marketing campaigns.
