How does Hugverkastofan's approach to brand experience and outreach help communicate its values and services, especially to those who may not understand intellectual property?

The brand is not just what you communicate externally; it’s about the total experience people have with you, every time they interact with your institution. For me, building a brand is about consistency and authenticity.

When I first joined Hugverkastofan, I recognised there was some work to do in how we communicated our values and services to our potential customers and to the public. We now focus a lot on reaching people who may not have much interest or a deep understanding of intellectual property, whether it’s small businesses, entrepreneurs, advertising agencies or individuals. An important part of that is partnering with other institutions and companies, organising and attending events, and engaging in an active outreach to make IP more accessible.

As an example, we partnered last year with Design March and Epal and with the Federation of Industries and Kerecis to organize very successful events on counterfeiting and patents, during Design March and Iceland Innovation Week.

Both events were very successful and attracted great attention with our target groups and the media. We also toured the advertising agencies with a presentation on trademark registrations and what constitutes a good trademark from an IP standpoint. So we feel an active outreach is very important to get our message to our target groups.

What we’ve found is that many people don’t see the connection between IP and branding. But the reality is that protecting your intellectual property is essential for building and maintaining a strong brand.

You mentioned that many Icelandic businesses don’t fully realise the value of intellectual property. Is this part of a larger issue around branding?

One of the biggest challenges in Iceland is that many businesses, notably in important industries like energy or tourism, don’t fully grasp the importance of protecting intellectual property. We’re significantly behind our Nordic neighbours in patent applications, and many Icelandic companies overlook registering trademarks and designs.

The mindset has been that intellectual property isn’t that valuable, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Intellectual property is at the heart of a company’s operations and identity and all the most valuable companies in the world today are based on IP.

Same is true here in Iceland of course. When Kerecis was sold for more than a billion US dollars, much of that value came from their strong patent portfolio.

How does branding play into the way Icelandic businesses think about IP?

Many businesses still see branding as just marketing: a catchy slogan, a logo, or an ad campaign. But branding is much deeper than that. If you look at the other Nordic countries, they’ve developed many strong, international brands over a long time, but Iceland, being a relatively young society, still has only a few globally recognised brands on the consumer market.

I saw this clearly when I worked at Bioeffect. We didn’t just focus on marketing messages; we worked hard on creating a consistent brand story built on quality, integrity, and scientific advancement.

We didn’t try to reinvent ourselves every season. We stuck to the core values and story that defined us, and that’s what successful brands do: they stay true to their story and deliver it consistently.

Let's talk about Iceland’s image in branding. How does the country’s identity affect the way Icelandic businesses build their brands?

When I was at Bioeffect, we debated whether or not to highlight Iceland in our branding. There was some hesitation because the typical Icelandic image - the elves, trolls, and wild landscapes - didn’t necessarily fit the scientific, high-quality brand we were building.

In the end, our international distributors advised us to keep the “Made in Iceland” label. But we didn’t want to just associate the brand with Iceland’s exotic side. We wanted to show that Iceland is not just a land of folklore but a place of innovation, equality, and scientific advancement.

This narrative shift is important. Iceland is often marketed as this mysterious, exotic place, but we wanted to portray it as a modern, educated society. We wanted our brand to come across that: pure, innovative, and rooted in a technologically advanced society.

You’ve had a long career before joining ISIPO. What drew you to the role of Communications Manager?

I have experience in working on innovation, biotech and at a University and Intellectual Property has been very important to the operations of all these workplaces and I therefore felt I had a good skill set and connections to take on this role.

While I’m deeply involved in public relations, I’ve always been interested in brand building, particularly how it connects to communication. A brand is not just about external messages or flashy campaigns, it’s about the entire experience people have when they engage with a company. It’s what they feel, see, and interact with.

Take our website, for example. It’s designed not just to showcase our services but to help people achieve their goals, whether they’re searching for trademarks, applying for a patent or seeking general advice on matters of IP. Our mission is to serve our users effectively.

To me, branding is a long-term commitment, and at Hugverkastofan, it’s about making intellectual property accessible and understood as a vital part of building and running a company.

Finally, what advice would you give to Icelandic businesses looking to build stronger brands?

My advice would be to focus on the long-term. Branding isn’t about quick wins or trends; it’s about building trust and consistency over time. Your brand is the sum of every interaction your company has with customers, employees, and the public.

And crucially, a strong brand is built on authenticity. Stick to the story you want to tell, and don’t waver. But to protect that story, you also need to invest in intellectual property. Without protecting your innovations, designs, and trademarks, you leave your assets vulnerable.

IP isn’t just a legal tool, it’s a strategic asset. If businesses start seeing their IP as part of their business foundation, they’ll be in a much better position to thrive in the long term.