Ten Commandments of Branding

[mandy]

# Focus on Target Markets

The first commandment of branding is that a brand has to work well in a company's target markets. This rule is often ignored in favor of brands that confer status in locations where a company is based.

# Don't Covet Another's Brand

A brand should not borrow or approximate a brand name from a firm already known in a target market, regardless of whether service offerings are dissimilar. Violating this rule drives away clients that are afraid to depend on a company with a brand that is tenuous or shady. When an offshore company is infringing on an established brand name in a target market, nothing else is or should be relevant to potential clients.

# Match Brands Exactly With Domain Names

A brand should be identical to its corresponding domain name. For example, a brand for news and services to protect against software vulnerabilities could be expressed as SoftwareVulnerabilities.com, not Software-Vulnerabilities.com or iSoftwareVulnerabilities.com. The dash can help in mirror sites put up for search engine optimization, but not for the primary brand. Unless streaming video is involved, only dot-com and dot-net names should be used for international and North American markets...

full article: http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/Ii1J...ding.xhtml