November 29, 2011
Chick-fil-A Enters Into Brand Naming Dispute With T-Shirt Guy
Sometimes the world of naming and branding just gets darn ugly when it comes to trademark spats.
The news going around the Internet this week is that Vermont artist Bo Muller-Moore is going head-to-head with the Atlanta-based, Chik-fil-A, fast food chain over the fact that he uses a hand silkscreen to print the words "Eat More Kale" to t-shirts.
The company feels that Muller-Moore is creating a likelihood of confusion with their slogan, which is, of course, "Eat More Chicken."
In a recent letter, the fast food chain states that the artist's slogan "is likely to cause confusion of the public and dilutes the distinctiveness of Chick-fil-A's intellectual property and diminishes its value."
They have successfully defended their trademark against thirty others who have tried to use a similar slogan, but this one has caught the Web's attention because it is such a David and Goliath story.
They want him to not only stop using the slogan, but to hand over his web site as well - www.eatmorekale.com.
We're talking about a fast food chain that is second only to KFC in the chicken biz.
Suing a t-shirt guy.
In Vermont.
I see no similarity in design, typeface or font between the two slogans. I think kale and chicken are easy to distinguish from one another, I probably am going to side with the blogosphere on this one.
One blogger targeted Chik-fil-A's mission statement that promises that the company will "glorify God."
Another has posted the Chik-fil-A ads next to pictures of the offending Eat More Kale t-shirts to illustrate just how small time this guy is, and how different the two slogans are.
And other bloggers have some fairly strong language reserved for Chik-fil-A and are calling for a boycott.
A law school professor in Vermont noted that a similar fight erupted between microbrewer 'Vermonster' and energy drink giant 'Monster' which was settled when the brewer agreed to never move into the wacky world of energy drinks.
Muller-Moore is not backing down and has enlisted the help of a local lawyer who really puts it best when he says "At the end of the day, I don't think anyone will step forward and say they bought an 'Eat More Kale' shirt thinking it was a Chick-fil-A product."
Technorati Tags: Chick-fil-A, Eat Mor Chiken, Eat More Kale, Trademark, Slogans
Posted by William Lozito at 8:07 AM
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November 11, 2011
Will Starbucks Brand Name Transfer To Juice?
The news that Starbucks is getting into the juice business comes as no surprise.
The fact that they offer so many products in their stores including food and cold drinks (lemonade and other juices), has long indicated that they want the brand to mean more to us than just coffee.
They dropped $30 million on a small juice company called Evolution Fresh Inc., which has a large presence on the West Coast. The Evolution beverages will replace the Naked Inc. beverages sold in Starbucks stores, as well as go into supermarkets with evolution.
Whether they rebrand these juices or not, one element of their strategy is to use their presence in the Starbucks stores to generate awareness. The WSJ quotes Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz as saying that getting these juices in front of the 60 million people who frequent Starbucks each week is "equivalent to airing a commercial on the top three television shows weekly." Maybe, maybe not.
Additionally, the company has announced plans to open a new chain centered on wholesome beverages and food that will tap into the $1.6 billion juice market and the $50 billion health foods market.
No matter what the stores are called, "Starbucks has the clout, marketing savvy and name recognition to make its juice and health foods a premium brand and take market share from competitors," or so the LA Times quotes one expert enthusing.
But will they use the brand equity of Starbucks?
It's a tough call, but I would imagine they will in some form or another, partly because it seems obvious that the juice stores will offer coffee and other goodies, and people already see Starbucks as a spot where they can get a myriad of products.
Apple Computer changed its name to Apple, Inc. as it broadened its product line with iPods, iPhones, and iPads. This was a great move despite initial skepticism in the industry that the company would struggle to sell in these new product categories.
Juice has long been an open gambit for Starbucks anyway, and as Seattlepi says, $30 million is "chump change" to the coffee giant.
If Starbucks goes into this venture wholeheartedly, they could transform the juice business the way they transformed coffee.
Remember when people thought expensive coffee wouldn't work?
Technorati Tags: Coffee, Starbucks, Juice, Branding, Naming, Marketing
Posted by William Lozito at 7:54 AM
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September 29, 2011
Tavern on the Green Restaurant Name Lives
I have been following this sad but interesting story about the Tavern on the Green brand naming for two years now.
When the fabled restaurant went out of business, the brand name was valued at $19 million. After a quick dispute with the owners, it was established that the name itself belongs to the city of New York.
The brand has now been sold for $1.3 million for use on restaurants outside of metropolitan New York.
Interestingly, the name now can also be used on food products.
These products cannot be sold in the New York area without getting the city's permission, but this does mean that we might actually see some interesting Tavern on the Green products in our supermarkets in the near future.
Licensees of the name will have to donate a portion of their revenues to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. This means that the Tavern on the Green brand name now has a social conscience.
The question that is on my mind is whether or not the buyers of the name, Tavern International have negotiated a good deal. At least one blogger feels that this "$1.3 million bargain will exponentially surpass the 2009 $19 million appraisal of the name's brand value."
This is because licensing the name for a variety of products could be worth a tremendous amount of money. Lawry's condiments make more money than the restaurant that created them, as do the frozen pizzas licensed by Spago.
The original Tavern on the Green restaurant, of course, is now closed. So, we might be in the strange position of seeing a chain of restaurants making a great deal of money off the name while development of the original restaurant lags.
My feeling is that the original restaurant will come back in some form. It might be only as the flagship store for a nationwide brand, but I think for most tourists to New York, that would be just fine.
Technorati Tags: Tavern on the Green, Naming License, Brand Naming, Naming, Branding
Posted by William Lozito at 7:59 AM
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September 26, 2011
Legendary Brand Naming: Wendy's Finally Finds the Beef
I just love a tagline that won't die.
In this case, we are talking about the famous Wendy's tagline "Where's the Beef?"
This tagline, if you can believe it, came out in 1984. Yes, that's right, it's the same year as the famous Apple "Think Different" ad.
It is really amazing because the meaning of Wendy's advertisement has not faded a bit. The phrase was so popular that it was used by Mondale in a presidential debate.
Now, Wendy's is bringing it back alongside a website with the URL wheresthebeef.com. I suppose it doesn't even need to be said that the Internet wasn't even a gleam in anybody's eye when the advertisement was originally coined.
For those of you who might not have been born when the "Where's the Beef?" ad came out, it simply featured a grumpy old lady played by Clara Peller asking the famous question as her friends looked at a "big, floppy" bun offered by a competitor. The idea was that Wendy's was where you got real beef burgers, and we were all getting grumpy with burgers that offered anything less. But the "single" Wendy's burger that was being sold in the ad then is nothing compared to the monster burger Wendy's is pushing now.
The new line of Dave's Hot 'N Juicy Cheeseburgers answers the question, finally. The new ad campaign is entitled "Here's the Beef." The name "Dave" references Wendy's founder Dave Thomas.
These burgers are meant to promote the idea that the legendary hamburger maker would have certainly lent his name to these creations. The ads even feature the real Wendy - Dave's daughter - as well as actors playing Wendy has a child and her father.
In a very real sense, the ads bring back one of the great hamburger icons from yesteryear. Said one executive attached the campaign,"We posed the question 27 years ago, and here's the answer. Everything going forward is about the answer."
I'm just glad to see that we finally know exactly where the beef is to be found. At Wendy's.
Technorati Tags: Where's the Beef?, Wendy's, Tagelines, Clara Peller
Posted by William Lozito at 8:26 AM
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September 22, 2011
Ben & Jerry's Gets A Million Mothers Angry Over Schweddy Balls Brand Name
So Ben & Jerry's has created a "tasteless" ice cream name in its new "Schweddy Balls" flavor.
This actually pays homage to a Saturday Night Live sketch but that doesn't seem to wash with the conservative group One Million Moms, a group trying to get people to write the company in order to stop distribution of "Schweddy Balls." The name is "vulgar" they say and "not exactly what you want a child asking for at the supermarket."
Ben & Jerry's says that "Having a sense of humor is one of the things we do" and notes that this was not meant to shock, but they were simply taking cues from a well-known skit.
Others say the ice cream doesn't taste very good, with testers at the Huffington Post concluding it is "disappointing" and a few others complaining there are not enough "balls in the ice cream."
One blogger says "if you don't like the names Ben and Jerry's gives their new ice cream flavors, just don't buy it. When you decide to start a bunch of fanfare over something as trivial as this, you diminish yourselves, plus give Ben and Jerry's free publicity."
Seattlepi points out that it's often very hard to argue with an angry mother, noting "these moms have had it up to here with the ice cream maker's antics, mister... Don't make them turn this car around. And you just wait until your father gets home."
Jokes aside (although it is very hard to put jokes aside on this one), Ben & Jerry's has always tried to break the mold when it comes to ice cream naming.
Flavorwire notes that they also have a flavor called Hubby Hubby which was meant to support gay marriage.
I think that it should also be noted that Ben & Jerry's has quite a few flavors that they have taken off the shelves after a relatively short life cycle.
One look at the Ben & Jerry's "flavor graveyard" shows us all kinds of dead flavors, like "Economic Crunch" and "White Russian."
I think that this is one of those flavors that will soon be gone simply because its relevance is clearly limited.
But let's face it - this kind of delicious boutique ice cream is really meant for the "Cherry Garcia" college crowd, not toddlers.
Technorati Tags: Schweddy Balls, Ben & Jerry's, Ice Cream, Naming
Posted by William Lozito at 8:01 AM
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