How a digital marketing firm secured its brand with trademarks

The world of trademarks, copyright and intellectual property can seem a complicated mess of legal jargons, liabilities and litigation that we see as a necessary evil in capitalist society. The popular associations with overly bureaucratic commercial law have lead many people to misunderstand or dismiss the importance of trademarks for any business.

Trademarks are the way in which modern consumers navigate the highly competitive marketplaces we find today. This is especially true since the rise of the internet, as people from all around the world share a single marketplace that is highly visual and interactive.

photo/ Gerd Altmann

The internet has allowed millions of people to engage with businesses and start their own in a marketplace where technology allows them to target specific audiences. These forms of digital marketing are actually the way the business we will be discussing has developed its product.

SEO Shark is a digital marketing firm based in Sydney, Australia and has worked hard to dig out a niche for itself in an increasingly competitive market. As more people realized the virtues of digital and search marketing, the more businesses wanted to get their slice of the search engine optimization (SEO) cake.

As a brand-name, SEO Shark is simple and memorable. The alliteration of the “S” sound, the sharpness and symbolism of the word “Shark” as well as the visual imagery of “devouring the competition” worked to create a fun and commercially viable brand image.

However, SEO Shark quickly realized that without the proper protection of their brand with a trademark the unique benefits it gives them could be co-opted by a competitor. The simplest yet most effective brand-names are usually thought of by more than one person around the world, and this was the problem SEO Shark encountered.

Naturally, as SEO became a lucrative industry, there were several variations of SEO used in different business names. It was inevitable that someone else on the planet would have come up with “SEO Shark”.

While unable to enforce their brand as the one and only across the world, SEO Shark was able to act quickly and secure their trademark as the only “SEO Shark” in Australia. This was a significant turning point in building their business and was definitely a big part of making their mark in Australia’s market.

Without having done what they did, SEO Shark would have invited disputes and even outright lawsuits between businesses seeking to claim the brand-name. There would have been examples of people accidently conflating two different companies because of a similarity in branding.

In order to avoid the legal headaches and general confusion that would have resulted otherwise, SEO Shark was smart to make a prudent decision and trademark their brand. It allowed them to secure their business identity so that they could grow its relevance in the minds of potential clients.

The brand is always a critical asset, especially for businesses that sell consultancy or some other kind of service that requires the communication of trust and confidence. People correlate symbols and language with emotions, and this is the true power of what trademarks are.

The SEO Shark brand tells prospective clients that their firm is a leader in the digital ecosystem, has a highly competitive mindset and is unafraid to devour smaller fish on its way up. By securing this brand-name, SEO Shark was able to secure the image that it has been able to successfully market itself with ever since.