In-house strategies and considerations – an introduction

The ability to manage a brand balance sheet is key to optimising business operations and strategic decision making. For trademark professionals, inputting into this critical task has a number of paybacks – from helping the team to make even stronger commercial choices to raising its profile and interaction levels with other commercial stakeholders.

INTA’s Brand Value Special Task Force Report highlights the critical role that trademark practitioners should play alongside financial and marketing professionals in brand valuation and evaluation exercises. In Understanding brand value – insights from INTA, the association reflects on the need for trademark practitioner specialists to transition to brand generalists and where their nuanced understanding of brand valuation and evaluation enables them to become internal strategic partners. It also explores current industry challenges and how to enhance the value and purpose of in-house IP teams.

Among the in-house practitioners breaking new ground, highlights from an interview with Ugreson Maistry, former trademark and IP counsel at the Forest Stewardship Council (see From the WTR archive: why a one-size-fits-all approach to ROI for brand protection will never work) reveal why teaming up with industry players is vital to raising the profile of sustainability brands and how brand valuation fits into the picture.

In addition to challenges around brand valuation, return on investment is essential in a KPI-driven environment. As a result, brand professionals need to consider how they calculate the effectiveness of spend. Doing so can be a challenge – particularly when it comes to brand protection. It is therefore up to the trademark team to tailor its processes depending on company culture, industry, infringement levels and cross-functional standing. In A not-for-profit approach to brand valuation, we present a piece from the WTR archive that explores various approaches.

Brand valuation truly comes to the fore during M&A decision making. In Assessing and maximising the value of portfolios in M&A scenarios, Henk-Jan Rutgers, key account director and partner at Novagraaf, the Netherlands, considers how to ensure that the value of portfolios is properly assessed and maximised in such transactions.