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Branding refers to naming a business or product or service. A brand will typically have a logo or design which is used by customers to identify the product or service.

If your name is Alan Sugar and you start a building business called Alan Sugar Building and Construction, then this is basically your brand.

Branding is potentially a complex subject because it extends to intellectual property and copyright, trademarks, etc., for which, if you are embarking on any significant business activity, you should seek qualified legal advice. When doing so contain your ambitions and considerations (and your legal fee exposure) so that they are appropriate for your situation.

There is much though that you can decide for yourself, and certainly a lot you can do to protect and grow your brand so that it becomes a real asset to you, rather than just a name.

General guidance about business and product names, your rights to use them, and ways of protecting them, are provided (for the UK) via the UK Intellectual Property Office website. Many of these principles apply internationally, although you should check your local laws for regions beyond the UK and especially beyond Europe.

Aside from the legal technicalities certain basic points should be considered concerning branding:

• Brand names must be meaningful and memorable in a positive relevant sense. Ideally your customers should associate your brand(s) with your business, your quality, and perhaps some other aspects of your trading philosophy and style.
• Choose your brand names carefully. Product and business brand names carry meanings. Meanings can be different among different types of people. If possible test possible brand names with target customers to see what the market thinks, rather than relying only on your gut instinct on your friends' opinions.
• If your business is serious and certainly if it is international - you must seek advice about the international meaning of branding words and the rights and protections implications of those words.
• As a general rule, but not a consistent point of law, you are usually much safer in terms of avoiding risk of breaching someone else's rights to a brand name if you use a generic (properly descriptive) word or phrase to brand your business or product, than if you use a made-up name, or any word which does not properly describe your business or product.
• For example - if you open a pet shop in Newtown and you call it (give it the brand name of) 'Newtown Pet Shop' then probably this will not breach any existing protected rights belonging to someone else in the pet business. If instead you want to call (brand) your pet shop 'Petz' or 'Furry Friends' then there is a strong likelihood that someone else might already have protected such a brand name, which could give problems for you in the future, especially if your business becomes big and successful, or you wish to sell it one day, or if the rights-owner happens to be particularly aggressive in protecting their rights.
• It takes many years to build trust and reputation in branded names (of businesses, services, and products) so making frequent changes to business names and brand names is not a good idea, and in some cases even making a single change can produce surprisingly powerful problems. See the case-study example of ineffective branding and organization name changing below.
• If you must change a brand name, and there are times when this is necessary, you should plan (unless there are strong reasons for ceasing the previous brand) a transition which customers and the wider market-place understand. An obvious solution is to phase the change by merging the old and new brand names. The UK Nationwide Building Society is a good example of this when it joined with the Anglia Building Society. For several years the new company was then branded the Nationwide Anglia, only dropping the Anglia when the market fully recognised the change. Commonly executives and agency folk managing a new brand name project tend to overlook the sensitivities of customers who know and trust the old brand, and this is especially risky to customer loyalty and business continuity wherever a brand with a strong reputation is replaced.
• Beware of creative agencies giving you advice that's more in their interests than yours and your customers. Brands and advertising are primarily communications with customers; they are not works of art or the personal statement of a designer. The creative aspect of a brand (particularly design or logo) must be of good quality, but the creative element is not an end in itself. Often the best solution is the simplest one, because customers understand it. Always ask yourself - "Will people understand this (brand or brand image/communication)? Will it be meaningful to my target audience, and does it truly fit with what I'm trying to do in my business?"