After receiving royal approval from Queen Elizabeth in 1600, The Company quickly developed a range of icons to help identify itself and in doing so created the world’s first global corporate brand logo.

Soon after its creation The Company began to use a Merchant’s mark – as an identifying mark on its goods arriving in busy ports or sold on the trading floor.

This mark identified goods traded by The East India Company. Initially a simple mark, it evolved by the 1700s into a heart shaped figure surmounted by a figure four, or sail, and containing the initials of The Company, EIC.

The Merchant’s Mark was also referred to as the ‘Chop’, within The Company a word derived from the Hindi, “ćhāp”, meaning stamp.

The Merchant’s Mark was not only a mark of ownership – showing that goods were from The East India Company – it also became a symbol of the quality of those wares.  It is considered by many to be the first commercial trademark, and became the most widely known brand logo of its time.  In branding all of its cargoes with the Merchants’s mark The East India Company created a global corporate brand logo recognisable across all its trading territories.