Excellent comments on branding. As a trademark lawyer, I believe I can offer some insight as to why UPS is calling itself “Brown” — it is so they can corner the market on delivering packages in brown trucks or uniforms.

Color has been enforceable as a trademark since the “Qualitex” Supreme Court case in 1995. Owens Corning claims trademark rights to pink insulation (and licensed the Pink Panther character to drive that association home).

To garner trademark rights in a color (and thus legally prevent any competitor from using that color), the color must not be the “natural” color of a product, it cannot bestow any functional benefit, and the company must show that the color has acquired “secondary meaning.” That means that a significant portion of the public associates the color exclusively with the seller. One way to show secondary meaning is to show advertising that not only touts the color, but encourages the public to use the color to identify the source of the goods — that is, color as a brand, not just as the color.

In UPS’s case, if you see a delivery van and its brown, you know it’s a UPS van. You don’t even have to be close enough to read the logo off the side. If a person is entering an office building wearing a brown uniform and carrying packages, he or she works for UPS. How many brands require that little information to connote the source? Trademarking a color is a VERY powerful brand — so much so that UPS is sinking millions into advertising itself as “Brown.”