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FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Palmistry and numerology: understanding branding
By David Gewirtz
Welcome to our March 1999 issue. This issue marks the first in which we'll be covering the new Palm V and Palm IIIx devices. In my editorial this month, I'm going to talk a lot about product naming and branding, discuss a letter I received from a developer about the Palm brand, and then end by getting on my little soapbox and pontificating on the Palm V and Palm IIIx names. By the time I'm done, I'm sure I'll have ticked off, annoyed, or otherwise offended just about everyone. It's a job. Somebody's got to do it.
Stephen King (not that Stephen King) of the WPP Group in London once described the difference between a "product" and a "brand". He said, "A product is something that is made in a factory; a brand is something that is bought by a customer. A product can be copied by a competitor; a brand is unique. A product can be quickly outdated; a successful brand is timeless."
One way to think of a brand is as a "word in the mind". If that word, even a combination of meaningless letters, creates an instant mind-picture of a product and a set of values, that word is a brand. When you combine the letters V, M, and T in the order MTV, instantly you associate the letter sequence M-T-V with the music television channel, rock music, and all that rock music represents (good or bad). Likewise, when you combine the letters W, B, and M into a certain sequence, you get BMW, what most people think of as a high-priced, high-performance German automobile -- even though they also make motorcycles and the rather strange C1 device that's some bizarre combination of the two.
A brand, as defined by the David Aaker, author of the classic text Managing Brand Equity, is this:
A brand is a distinguishing name and/or symbol (such as a log, trademark, or package design) intended to identify the goods or services of either one seller or a group of sellers, and to differentiate those goods or services from those of competitors.
So, according to Aaker's definition, "Palm" is a distinguishing name that identifies the device we all know and love and helps us, as customers, to distinguish it from other interesting devices, such as the Nino, the Cassiopeia, the Newton, and even the old Sharp Wizard.
Let's continue our branding lesson just one small step further. When a brand is given governmental protection, so others can't use that brand for their own purposes, that brand is said to be trademarked. So while Palm Computing created the brand "Palm", what they own is the trademark "Palm". In effect, the brand is what works in our hearts and minds as consumers and the trademark is the legal object that is the property of Palm Computing.
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