Brand Name vs Trade Name – which should be branded?
Brand name should be single-worded business name for marketing so that it can easily popularize. You should also get same domain name, matching exactly with the primary word of the trade name.
Trade name is officially registered name with a government body and can be long than its brand name version. Do not market official trademark as brand name.
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For example, ‘Vodafone Group Plc’ is a trade name, but it is popular with its single worded brand name of just Vodafone.
Similarly, F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, is a Swiss multinational healthcare company but it has popularized itself as only Roche which is single worded name. The company has also used single wordmark Roche on its social media (Facebook, Twitter) accounts. It also has the same single wordmark as website domain name.
Let’s move to another good example which you can follow. Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc does not brand its full official name but only uses single wordmark of ‘Broadridge’ whether on website or social media handles. However, on the footer of website, it mentions the complete official name.
Do not follow the example of Blonyx Biosciences Inc because the company uses trademark as brand name. It uses Blonyx Biosciences on its Twitter account, which is unnecessarily long in my opinion, although the company has a good short domain blonyx.com. They should only use and promote ‘Blonyx’ as the single unique name.
In my humble opinion, Blonyx also does another mistake by using completely different websites (blonyx.eu and blonyx.ca) for UK, EU, and Canada.
On the flip side, some companies with highly descriptive business names, lack primary brand name. For example, ‘Associated British Foods plc’ has no primary brand name and apparently this is the reason that company writes its full name even in its logo. This is another reason why I don’t like descriptive company names.
Therefore, use your brand name for branding - not the trade name.
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