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ESSENTRA CASE STUDY
SUMMARY
Sector:
Manufacturing
Brand type: Corporate
Primary Client: Filtrona
Senior Partner Client: Brand Union
Trademark territories: 83 jurisdictions
Trademark classes: Total 16
Countries/ Republics: 85
Languages: 56
Validation types: Localized Language, International Language, Trademark Identical, Trademark Extended, Google, URL
International Standards Implemented: ISO 639-2 Language codification
BACKGROUND
FT top 250 company, Filtrona were looking for a new company name which would transport them into a new era of post ‘filter’ specialization with the focus on diversified, but essential things that help businesses work. Filtrona were formerly manufacturers and distributors of filters of various kinds. Having divested themselves of much of this filter production, as Essentra they are now represented in sectors covering most of the commercial world including consumer goods, industrial, transport, logistics and vehicles.
Before crystalising as SuperUnion, Brand Union were one of the world’s top branding agencies working for iconic brands such as Microsoft, Heineken, GSK, Land Rover and Deloitte and recently winning a gold at the Transform Awards for their work on Durex packaging at the 2016 Transform Awards and in 2015 won the British Council’s prestigious ‘best fit-out of workplace’ together with architects BDG for their Brewhouse Yard offices.
PROJECT
We followed our client-specific Appella process of name preference questionnaire, brief template, name map, masterlist, longlist selection and automated global negative language screening followed by initial validation. Initial validation comprised identical trademark checks and localised linguistic checks.
The name preference questionnaire phase was an interesting one as there was an almost unequivocal lean towards the blended and (semi-) made-up styles. This was useful as it meant trademark checking would be less costly, and fewer names would fall out, than if we had to take a collection of largely English words through checks.
As usual, at the longlist linguistic validation stage, several names had minor or less minor issues such as Elixient which in Javanese language is quite close to elik ‘ugly’. Javanese as a first language is spoken in Indonesia by around 95 million people. Elixient went through to the final selection being liked by everyone. On the other hand, out of the 56 languages screened against, Essentra came back with only 11 linguists not giving it one of the top two – out of seven – grades.
We then carried out Extended Trademark and Google checks on a selected ten names including Essentra (essential and central) and Elixient (elixir and ingredient). Extended Checks are in depth checks on phonetic and visual variants of the selected names which hugely cut the cost of independent global trademark checks. Trademark priority filing was also carried out on these names. Priority filing is whereby a name can be initially and quickly filed as a trademark to prevent competitors from potentially registering the same or a similar name.
Filtrona’s decision makers decided on ESSENTRA because it was a name whose meaning ‘essential and central (component products)’ best embodied the core offer of their diversified group. These two key words also had near global recognition and so showed a common meaning across the large majority of their markets.
The link through the –a coda and the three syllable rhythm ES-SEN-TRA provides memorable and compelling continuity with their old name. Its length also made trademark validation and registration a less onerous task than it would almost certainly have been for a shorter name.
