With the recognition that a brand name or trade name is important for business, there is a trend among large prestigious law firms and even some smaller law firms to rebrand their law firm name to one that is good for branding.

What’s good for branding? A simple one-word tradename, preferably one that stands out. Hence, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy is now just “Milbank”.

I believed for years that prohibiting law firms from using a trade name is unconstitutional. There is no rational basis to require law firms to use the name of a partner, especially when the names of partners deceased for many decades are permitted.

The top Super Bowl commercials are rated by the public for entertainment but which commercial is the best to sell the product? It’s the Michael Bublé Bubly™ commercial by Goodby Silverstein & Partners.

Why is the Michael Bublé Bubly™ Super Bowl TV commercial my winner? It’s not analytics.

SPARK Neuro is an interesting company offering neuroanalytics to optimize advertising. Using a headset, they measure the amount of emotion and attention of the viewer while a TV commercial is playing.

Does your law office advertise a slogan or vanity phone number on your website or advertising? If you haven’t trademarked it, you might be in for an unpleasant surprise.

I once put “No Fee Guarantee” on my law firm website. Sometime later, I received a letter advising that it was trademarked and that I would have to remove it. Since it was only on my website and not on billboards and TV advertising, it was easy to remove.

Now for the second time, after allegedly abandoning their first claim, Chick-fil-A sent a cease-and-desist letter to Bo Muller-Moore who makes screen printed “Eat More Kale” T-shirts by hand.  Apparently, Chick-fil-A believes that use of the slogan “Eat More Kale” on T-shirts is confusingly similar to their slogan “Eat Mor Chikin” for their restaurants.

Although I think this is legally ridiculous, I don’t think I like to try Chick-fil-A if it tastes like a T-shirt.

In another equally interesting and legally ridiculous claim, the porn company Vivid Entertainment accused Taiwan-based phonemaker, HTC of violating their trademark by marketing their new phone called Vivid.

Once you decide on on the direction of your brand, never forget it and never deviate from it. I noticed two recent examples of brand deviation or destruction by major corporations.

Recently, Domino’s announced that (after 40 years) they discovered their pizza wasn’t good! Can you imagine that? So they reinvented their pizza and recent advertising has focused on nothing but how proud they are of their new taste.