Embracing ‘the Branding Age’

Officially opening INTA’s innovative 2022 Annual Meeting Live+, the Opening Ceremonies were characterized by reflection and hope, while providing a warm welcome to registrants, reports Tom Phillips.

At the opening of INTA’s 2022 Annual Meeting Live+, yesterday, May 1, the organizers celebrated the first in-person, full-scale Annual Meeting since 2019—and confirmed the location of the 2023 Annual Meeting Live+.

Enthusiasm about connecting again in person, after a nearly three-year, pandemic-driven hiatus, was evident throughout the Opening Ceremonies, which was live at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., and livestreamed for those attending virtually. As INTA CEO Etienne Sanz de Acedo declared, “We’re back!”

The Association will be “back” again, in person and virtually, in 2023, when it hosts its Annual Meeting in Singapore, Mr. Sanz de Acedo announced.

The Opening Ceremonies also reflected on the tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic and how the Association has adapted to the changing needs of the brand and intellectual property (IP) community.

Keynote Speaker Andy Stalman, co-founder and CEO of Totem Branding (Spain), delivered a passionate and upbeat message on the role brands will play in creating a better world.

“The true value of brands is misunderstood and undervalued. And as a result, the true value of our work is also misunderstood and undervalued .”
Zeeger Vink, MF Brands Group (Switzerland)

“The future for brands, the future for trademarks, the future for IP, the future for society, the future of the future starts today,” Mr. Stalman told the packed ballroom.

Brands, he said, are no longer just in the business of selling products. They are starting to play a new, more ambitious, and demanding role. And people are relying on businesses and companies to change things for the better.

“If we build, develop, create, and transform better brands we will have better businesses, organizations, institutions, and a better society,” he said.

“What the world needs today is courage to understand that nothing will be for free and nothing will be easy. We need more action toward the transformation to the world we want to live in,” he urged.

“I believe we are not in an era of change anymore; we are the stars of a change of era,” said Mr. Stalman. “I call it: the Branding Age.”

Brands Driving the Change

Mr. Stalman declared that it was time to “say goodbye to individuality and selfishness.” “What if we change the ‘me’ to the ‘we’? What if we start co-creating more and building a sense of community where everybody has something to say and contribute? We cannot outsource this; we cannot buy it off the Internet. We are all in this together,” he said.

“This new era is a time of infinite possibilities. We tend to focus our energies on fear, negativity, and volatility, but what about if we focus on possibilities?”

Further, he called on brand professionals to embrace the opportunity to be green without greenwashing, noting, “If your brand is not improving people’s lives, what is your brand doing?”

Mr. Stalman added: “The new role of brands is going beyond the economic impact of growth, revenue, and profit. It’s understanding the social and environmental outcomes.”

“As a result of the pandemic, more and more of your clients and the corporations you represent have been shifting their business strategies to digital.”
Daren Tang, WIPO (Switzerland)

Global Resilience of IP

Special Guest Speaker, Director General Daren Tang of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) (Switzerland), also expressed his gratitude that he could join the Annual Meeting in person.

“This to me is progress without fear: seeing each other face-to-face,” he began, before revealing statistics that showed how the IP, innovation, and creative parts of the global economy have remained resilient despite the challenges of the pandemic.

“IP filings before WIPO as well as before the national IP offices have been going up over the past few years,” said Mr. Tang, who noted the comparison between the drop in filings seen after the economic crises of the dot com bubble and the 2008 crash.

This continued success has been thanks to a focus on digital technologies, he explained.

“As a result of the pandemic, more and more of your clients and the corporations you represent have been shifting their business strategies to digital, the metaverse—trends that started before the pandemic, but have accelerated as a result of the pandemic,” said Mr. Tang.

“There is no innovation without diversity.”
Tiki Dare, Oracle Corporation (US)

In the last 10 years, a more diverse picture of IP growth has emerged. Countries like Brazil, India, Indonesia, and Mexico have been seeing double-digit growth in IP filings year on year.

“What started in the traditional economic powerhouses of Europe and North America has become a global phenomenon. And I think that is something to be celebrated,” said Mr. Tang.

(The digital version of the April 30 INTA Daily News features an interview with Mr. Tang in which he delves further into these topics.)

Moment of Silence

The Opening Ceremonies began with Annual Meeting Project Team Co-Chair Stacey Watson, co-founder and principal at Markery Law, LLC (US), acknowledging “how fortunate” all members were to attend the event “whether in person or virtually.”

Echoing this sentiment, Co-Chair Sergio Barragan, legal director and trademark counsel, PepsiCo, Inc. (Mexico) said: “The same crisis that has prevented us from meeting in person over the past two years has also taken more than six million lives globally, including family members, close friends, and colleagues in our community.”

During the ceremonies, the co-chairs dedicated a moment of silence “for those lives lost to the pandemic and all those suffering around the world.”

They went on to describe how the INTA team had created an educational program that strongly reflects the times and the myriad challenges facing brands and brand professionals.

The Value of Brands

In his presentation, 2022 INTA President Zeeger Vink, Intellectual Property director at MF Brands Group (Switzerland), focused on brand value and providing greater recognition of the role of IP reporting.

“As brand professionals, we bring tremendous value to our brands and the companies that own them,” he said. “But that value also extends beyond the brand. It spreads throughout the global economy and to everyone who interacts with IP.”

However, he said, “The true value of brands is misunderstood and undervalued. And as a result, the true value of our work is also misunderstood and undervalued. This is a problem.”

“I learned very quickly how important it was to be resilient and get comfortable with dealing with whatever is coming at you.”
Ayala Deutsch, NBA Properties, Inc. (US)

There is a “huge disconnect” between accounting rules and economic reality, he warned.

To tackle the situation, Mr. Vink announced that on Saturday, April 30, INTA’s Board of Directors adopted a resolution on IP accounting standards, formally taking the position that “accounting standards should not require a blanket exclusion of trademark and complementary IP that are developed from recognition as assets on corporate balance sheets.”

Also on this issue, the 2022 Presidential Task Force on IP Reporting for Brands to delve further into the subject, he said.

For more on this topic, please see an interview with Mr. Vink on page 7 of today’s INTA Daily News.

Inspiring Leadership

INTA’s CEO, Mr. Sanz de Acedo, presented an on-stage interview with INTA’s immediate Past INTA President Tiki Dare, vice president and associate general counsel at Oracle Corporation (US), and her predecessor, 2020 INTA President Ayala Deutsch, executive vice president and deputy general counsel of NBA Properties, Inc. (US). When introducing them, he acknowledged the exceptional leadership of both during the past two years, as they faced the unprecedented challenges posed by the pandemic.

“If we build, develop, create, and transform better brands we will have better businesses, organizations, institutions, and a better society.”
Andy Stalman, Totem Branding (Spain)

Ms. Dare shared her experience of navigating INTA through uncharted territory one year into the pandemic, in 2021, when everybody had begun to adjust to a new way of working.

“We knew that even though people were tired of the pandemic, there was a tremendous amount of hope. Vaccines would come, somehow, we would get together in person, and finally, at the end of the year, we did that.”

Ms. Deutsch recalled: “I have spent my life preparing, but one thing the pandemic taught me was that sometimes preparation is not enough. I learned very quickly how important it was to be resilient and get comfortable with dealing with whatever is coming at you. The role at INTA helped me do that in my day job and in my life.”

Diversity and Inclusion

Ms. Dare and Ms. Deutsch have been “tremendous leaders” for diversity and inclusion, said Mr. Sanz de Acedo.

“There is no innovation without diversity,” said Ms. Dare, whose Presidential Task Force focused on improving representation in the Association and the wider trademark community.

Ms. Deutsch, who championed The Women’s LeadershIP Initiative during her tenure in 2020, added: “I’m really positive about the future of women in our field, and I would tell all those young women: bring your energy and ideas, and let’s do it together”.

Pre-registration for INTA's Annual Meeting in 2023

Concluding the Opening Ceremonies, Mr. Sanz de Acedo revealed that next year’s Annual Meeting will take place in Singapore, from May 16 to May 20. Its format will consist of in-person and virtual offerings.

Pre-registration opens online today, May 2, and will run through May 13.

The pre-sale is available to all 2022 Annual Meeting member registrants—both Live+ (in-person + virtual) and Virtual Only—and offers a 10 percent saving off the early-bird registration rate.

Monday, May 2, 2022

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