“A brand is any distinctive feature like a name, term, design, or symbol that identifies goods or services” (American Marketing Association, 2025). Businesses use brand marketing to create a unique identity and build connections with customers to increase sales, customer loyalty, and the overall value of the brand (American Marketing Association, 2025; Keller, 2003).
To help food and farm businesses build stronger brands, this fact sheet explores the elements of building an effective brand, key considerations and tools for communicating a brand consistently, and the basics of trademark law as a method for protecting brands. The focus of this fact sheet is on food and farm businesses, although the term “business” will be used throughout.
Building a Strong Brand
Brands help consumers as they make purchasing decisions. They help identify the source of a product, signal quality, and evaluate risk. The elements of a brand, including names, signs, symbols, colors, and other devices, can help differentiate a business in a crowded marketplace (Keller, 2003).
Strong branding can increase customer loyalty, improve consumers’ perceptions of a product, protect against competition and changes in pricing, and improve a company’s margins (Keller, 2003; Martin et al., 2024). According to one scholar, “the power of a brand lies in the minds of consumers or customers and what they have experienced and learned about the brand over time” (Keller, 2003).
Customers' perceptions of a business or product are also influenced by branding. Positive or negative emotional reactions to a brand can influence how customers view themselves and their relationships with other people. These emotions affect how a customer engages with a brand and add to the brand's social worth. Through customer experiences, marketing, or storytelling, a powerful brand can establish connections that transcend one product (Keller, 2003).
Developing a strong brand includes creating a brand identity, establishing a brand’s meaning, eliciting a brand response from consumers, and creating brand relationships. Keller posed that these steps, which happen sequentially, can be thought of as a series of questions from the perspective of a consumer toward a company or brand. A business working to build a strong brand can gear its communications toward answering these questions
- Who are you? (Brand identity)
- What are you? (Brand meaning)
- What about you? What do I think or feel about you? (Brand responses)
- What about you and me? What kind of association and how much of a connection would I like to have with you? (Brand relationships)
(Keller, 2003, p. 11)
Communicating Your Brand
A recognizable brand is created through the integration of visual components, tone, and language (Becker & Gijsenberg, 2023). A business should consider each of these elements that communicates its brand.
Visual elements of a brand include fonts, logos, colors, images, and more. For example, the recognizable green and yellow colors on products, merchandise, and advertisements, along with John Deere's leaping deer emblem, are well-known visual brand elements in the agricultural industry. In 1873, the corporation used its now-famous emblem for the first time. Today's logo is the first to show the deer still leaping rather than landing, and the company notes on its website that this visual choice signifies "a determination to advance through technology and to become the best version of what the world needs" (John Deere, n.d.).
Elements like tone and language reflecting a business’s mission are also part of a brand strategy. Organic Valley, a nationwide brand for organic milk and other dairy products produced by the farmer-owned cooperative CROPP Cooperative, uses the slogan, "Goodness from the Ground Up" prominently on its website (Organic Valley, n.d.b). The principles evoked by this phrase are reflected throughout the company's website, which emphasizes supporting environmentally friendly agricultural practices, family-run farms, and the ethical treatment of animals as core principles in the company’s mission and values (Organic Valley, n.d.a.).
Consistency in Brand Communication Is Key
As businesses communicate across platforms and over time, it is important to use consistent brand elements to improve consumer recognition (Becker & Gijsenberg, 2023).
One tool a food or farm business can use to ensure brand consistency is a brand identity summary. A brand identity summary identifies a company’s visual brand elements, including preferred fonts, logos, colors, and imagery. A business owner can also use a brand identity summary to share key brand elements with employees, graphic designers, website developers, printers, and others who create advertising or marketing materials. A number of elements should be included in a brand identity summary:
- primary and secondary logos and key points about how to use them, like background colors, sizing, or orientation
- primary and secondary colors with standardized color codes for using the colors
- preferred fonts and when each should be used
- examples of preferred images, icons, and patterns
(Sherman, 2023)
Considering Key Channels for Brand Communication
A key part of communicating a brand effectively is considering the right communication channels, which may depend on factors like target customer demographics, cost, ease of use, shopping channels where the business sells products, and more. Some communication channels where customers interact with food or farm brands include on-farm or in-store displays, signage, billboards, paid print advertisements, and digital touch points like social media, email, websites, and online search engines (Sneed et al., 2024).
One method businesses can use to consider key channels for their brand communication is customer journey mapping—a process to chart a customer’s path interacting with a brand prior to a purchase, at purchase, and after a purchase. Customer journey mapping includes:
- defining an objective
- creating a customer persona
- charting touchpoints or brand interactions with customers
- exploring customer perceptions
- identifying challenges and opportunities
(Sneed et al., 2024)
An estimated 44% of small businesses use social media to build brand awareness (Wong, 2024), and about 20% of farms marketing food directly to consumers use social media to provide information about their market channels (USDA, 2020). Despite the popularity of digital marketing, some businesses may find that conventional marketing tools remain vital. For example, a 2014 study exploring perceived barriers to expanding agritourism operations found that issues obtaining roadside signage were so important that they influenced operators’ expansion plans (Jensen et al., 2014).
It is crucial for businesses to use consistent branding elements on their social media, other digital platforms, signage, print, and other traditional marketing tools. Food and farm brands should use the same business name, logo, colors, and tagline on all marketing materials. Similar language and tone on marketing materials can help ensure businesses are engaging customers with their brand’s unique voice.
As businesses invest in building a strong, consistent brand, it may be prudent to ensure their brand does not infringe on existing brands, and to consider ways to protect the brand elements they have built.
Trademarks as an Element of Communicating a Brand
The power of association among the words, symbols, and designs that make up a brand that help customers identify the source of a product or service is the foundation of an important legal concept in branding and brand communication—trademark law (Bagley & Dauchy, 2012; United States Patent and Trademark Office, n.d.). A trademark can be any word, phrase, symbol, design, or combination of these things—often called marks—that identifies a good or service. A trademark creates legal protection for the way a mark is used in conjunction with specific goods or services (Bagley & Dauchy, 2012).* Trademark law in the United States exists at the state and federal level.
*A mark that identifies goods is a trademark, while a mark that identifies services is a service mark (United States Patent and Trademark Office, n.d.).
The distinctive shape or color of a food package might make customers think about how much they like the product inside. The recognizable logo for a favorite snack brand on a brand-new product might entice them to try the new snack. For example, Cuties—Sun Pacific’s brand name for their California-grown clementines and mandarins—is a federally registered trademark when used in relation to fresh citrus fruits (Sun Pacific, n.d.; United States Patent and Trademark Office, n.d.) NatureSweet’s grape tomatoes are branded as Cherubs, and the name is protected as a federally registered trademark when used in relation to fresh fruits and vegetables (NatureSweet, 2025; United States Patent and Trademark Office, n.d.).
Why are trademarks important?
Entrepreneurs launching a new food or farm business, expanding operations, or rebranding may benefit from considering whether the marks they are creating with their brand communications are too similarly confusing to an existing mark on similar products. Businesses can face legal issues under trademark law if they infringe on the trademark of another business by using a mark owned by someone else in a way that causes a likelihood of confusion for consumers (Cornell Law School, n.d.). Infringing on someone else’s trademark rights can result in actions that require the infringer to discontinue use of a mark or to pay monetary damages (Bagley & Dauchy, 2012).
Businesses establishing or growing their brand may want to protect the value of their brand marks by registering, enforcing, or maintaining their marks to ensure others cannot use them in a way that would be confusing to consumers.
For example, the phrase “Cheese Days” is a federally registered mark owned by Green County Cheese Days, Inc., which operates an annual festival in Monroe, Wisconsin, claimed as the “oldest food fest in the Midwest!” The festival’s website shares the reason for protecting the name of the 100-plus-year-old festival, stating, “While this sense of community ownership is beneficial in many ways, it also presents challenges as the Cheese Days Board of Directors balances growing the festival as a community partner, along with the need for protecting the best interests of the festival and insuring the future vitality and stability of the event.” The website goes on to explain that use of the phrase on merchandise or in connection with activities or events requires a license agreement or risks infringement on the mark (Cheese Days, 2024).
How is a trademark created?
Whether a word, symbol, design, or other mark qualifies for the legal protections of a trademark can be a complex question but generally requires that a mark is distinctive and is used in commerce (Cornell Law School, n.d.). Using an eligible mark in conjunction with the sale of goods or services can establish legal rights in a mark—even without registration. The use of the symbol ™ next to an unregistered mark may indicate that a user is claiming trademark rights in a mark. However, the legal rights in an unregistered mark can be limited, such as to a specific geography. Registration can grant a mark’s owner additional rights. Federal registration of a trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office can establish rights to use a mark with certain goods or services nationally. Use of the ® symbol alongside a mark denotes federal registration (United States Patent and Trademark Office, n.d.). In Ohio, a trade or service mark can be registered with the Ohio Secretary of State. A mark registered in this fashion provides notice to others that the owner has an exclusive right to use the mark in connection with certain goods or services in the state (Frank LaRose Ohio Secretary of State, 2023).
In general, the process for establishing a trademark includes:
- Ensuring a mark is distinctive enough to be eligible for protection as a trademark; generally, the most distinctive marks receive the greatest and most immediate protection available under trademark law (Bagley & Dauchy, 2012). Generic terms that simply name the type of product or service being sold, such as the term “cereal,” are not eligible for trademark protection (Justia, 2024b).
- Performing a trademark search to see if the mark is already being used alongside similar goods or services or is registered at the state or federal level (Bagley & Dauchy, 2012). In addition to public databases for registered marks, a comprehensive trademark search may also need to include social media, websites, and other platforms to ensure existing marks are not missed (Browning-Coughlin, 2024).
- Creating and maintaining rights in the trademark by using the mark in commerce and/or registering the mark at the state or federal level, as well as ensuring the mark remains valid over time—for example, through continued use and distinctiveness and/or renewed registration (Bagley & Dauchy, 2012).
Generally, owners of trademarks are responsible for monitoring for misuse of their marks and pursuing options for enforcement of their trademark rights (Justia, 2024a).
Consulting professionals and other resources
Understanding whether a word, symbol, design, or other element of a brand is currently or can be trademarked and then ensuring that a food or farm business establishes and maintains rights in a trademark can be complex. It is recommended that business owners hire an attorney who is familiar with or even specializes in intellectual property law or trademark law to explore their specific situation. Additionally, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office provides free online resources to help the public understand the essentials of trademarks, the process for trademark registration, and information for filings.
Conclusion
Branding communicates the who, what, and why of a food or farm business. It includes elements like visual cues, language, and more. Food and farm businesses will want to carefully consider the channels they use to communicate their brand, such as how they align with their target customer demographics, as well as whether they are consistently communicating their brand across all platforms. Concepts around trademark law may be important for food and farm businesses to consider as they develop and communicate their brand.
Food and farm businesses can consider key questions to enhance their brand communication:
- Does our brand clearly tell customers who we are, what we do, and why we do it?
- What are the key visual elements of our brand (colors, logos, fonts, etc.)? What are the other key elements of our brand (language, voice, slogan, etc.)?
- Do our key brand communication channels align with our target customer demographics?
- Are we using the same visual and language elements to communicate our brand across our various platforms?
- Is our brand similar to another food or farm business brand in a way that could be confusing to consumers? Does the value of our brand need to be protected to keep others from infringing on our brand marks?
Acknowledgments
The development of this fact sheet was supported, in part, by a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Cooperative Development Grant. USDA is an equal opportunity employer and service provider. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the USDA.
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