Marketing feature - protecting your brand

With a dramatic increase in the use of digital communications, prospective franchisees are being bombarded with direct marketing communications from a multitude of sources claiming to be the best place for them to part with their money. But are you being legal in your quest for growth? In our third marketing feature, marketing specialist, Sarah Dyer offers advice on protecting your brand, staying legal and understanding data

Intellectual Property: Protecting your brand

Franchising by nature offers individuals the chance to buy a proven business model. This concept alone is at the very heart of what intellectual property is all about. A franchisor’s experience in business offers a leap-frog format for a franchisee. The franchisee doesn’t have to waste time working out what documents are needed for a particular business, or what types of distribution channels would work best. They gain this from the franchisor as part of the package. Many new franchisors can underestimate the value in what they have created in ensuring their business operations are fully compliant.

The Intellectual Property Office receives many requests for trade mark registrations from businesses who want to protect their name in order to keep it exclusive within any given industry. With today’s digital environment and a variety of informational technologies converging, intellectual property is even more important; trade marks, copyright, designs, patents, trade secrets and confidential information is more freely available online – all of which is also a valuable commercial asset in its own right; protected and exploited properly, it gives businesses a competitive edge in the market.

Using data

Data must only be used for the purpose that it has been collected and with consent of the individual. Under no circumstances can data be sold, lent or used for another purpose unless consent has been clearly given. Below is a suggestion of what could be said to explain your company’s standing on data:
“To receive information about our franchise, you need to provide us with your contact information. We will use this information to provide you with further details about our franchise package and will not pass your details to any other third party. Please feel free to review our privacy policy. You have the right at any time to ask for the information we hold about you to be updated or to correct any inaccuracies. You can unsubscribe or update your contact details at any time by using the links in each email we send you.”

 

Opt-in or opt-out?

This is a widely misunderstood area relating back to ensuring that you have ‘prior consent’ from the person in question to contact them through the specified medium. ‘Opt-in’ is one way of assessing prior consent and is normally achieved with a statement asking if the user would like to receive the communication in question with an opt-in tick box.

Alternatively you can use the traditional ‘opt-out’ tick box in a similar way, by combining it with the appropriate legal statement. For example, when collecting their details include a positive data protection statement stating that by providing their details they consent to receive unsolicited marketing material. The key is for the statement to be considered as a positive consent by the user. If you are in any doubt over your digital communications refer to the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations.


As well as having a dedicated staff member actively collecting email address from a large database of current customers, sales staff can also be trained to ask and check customer details every time they speak to a customer on the telephone. By encouraging everyone within a business to gather email addresses, for example for an enewsletter, you can legally increase your database for almost zero outlay!

There are three main types of preference service; mail, telephone and email, and consumers can now register to be excluded from up to 95 per cent of direct mail online. For further information visit the Mailing Preference Service (www.mpsonline.org.uk).

Building trust and minimising risk

Data protection guidelines are in place to protect everyone involved in the process. Once a company has that customer’s data, it is the responsibility of the company to keep it safe. The press is quick to report some of the high profile cases where things have gone wrong, for example, HM Revenue & Customs, which lost 25 million child benefit records held on two CDs - mislaid in its internal post - and The Nationwide Building Society, handed a £1 million fine by the Financial Services Authority after the loss of a laptop containing details of 11 million customers.

Customer relations, sales and marketing staff are most at risk from losing or exposing protected data as they are the most likely to use a third party to assist with a direct mailing or franchise lead handling. The person ultimately responsible for the data should always carry out a due diligence procedure and have the right paper work, such as a confidentiality agreement, in place.

Another key area for concern is remote working, especially when a network of franchisees may be sharing confidential information. It is now common for data to leave the confines of the head office and copies to be made onto laptops or home working computers. While safety procedures need to be put in place, these shouldn’t conflict with the efficient running of the business from different locations.

Some useful tips

•    Always ensure you give prospects the opportunity to opt in or opt out of any correspondence.
•    Sales staff can also be trained to ask and check customer details each time they speak to them on the telephone.
•    Ensure you have the right legal notices and disclaimers attached to your emails including your registered company number and registered address.
•    Ensure you protect your domain name. Many companies that use their .co.uk as their main site also like to own the .com and .net versions to safeguard against other companies buying them.
•    Always us the ‘Bcc’ line when sending group emails. It sounds simple but so many people fail to do this and by sending group emails via the ‘To’ or ‘Cc’ lines leaves all the contact emails available for reviewing by any other recipient of that group email.
•    Regularly review your privacy policy to make sure it is still current and accurately describes what you will be doing with the data you collect.
•    Ensure that all your advertisements and editorials give the same information.
•    In all cases, if you are unsure of whether you are following the correct procedures, check with a qualified solicitor.

Useful contacts

•    The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP), www.cap.org.uk, is the industry body that creates, revises and enforces the British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing, and is endorsed and administered independently by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
•    www.marketinglaw.co.uk for information on marketing law.



For further information, please contact Sarah at sarah@coconutcreatives.co.uk. Alternatively, you can visit Coconut Creatives at The Franchise Marketing Conference on 11 September and book a place on one of our free marketing workshops – see www.franinfo.co.uk/fmc for more details.