June 16th 2009
Capgemini and the “Big Reveal” Professional services is a staple of airport advertising. But having seen this one at least one thousand times I still don’t understand how it sells Capgemini. Is the blue-suited lady the consultant, and is she inspiring her clients to disrobe? Or are the super hero-suited businessmen the consultants, and she’s […]
May 14th 2009
There are a lot of situations where allegations of trademark infringement are counter productive. As you’ve read here, overly aggressive enforcement can lead to unexpected, damaging, consequences for brands. Deutsche Telekom: threatened a tech blog for using magenta headlines, the color they reserved for tMobile. Monster Cable: the litigious audio wire vendor has threatend baseball […]
May 5th 2009
Technology and ambition fills our lives. As parents, professionals, friends and members of gyms, the edict to “Be All You Can Be” is a self-escalating puzzle. Simplicity and transparency have emerged as important brand promises in promoting political candidates, financial services, packaged goods and foods, and technology. It is easy to recall recent cases in […]
May 1st 2009
In a win for both fair use advocates and brand holders, the Fifth Circuit has interpreted the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d), and the duty of trial courts to carefully consider fair use and irreparable harm issues when ruling on a request for injunctive relief. See Southern Co. v. Dauben Inc. The […]
April 30th 2009
For the second consecutive day, Facebook has been attacked by phishing scams. Unsuspecting Facebook users get a message from a friend urging them to “check this out” and including a link to a Web page that appears to be a Facebook log-in page. It is, however, a fake site which steals their log-in credentials, and […]
April 30th 2009
Note to self: five things not to do on social media. Never make a public Facebook group called: “Make-it-Rain Foundation for Underprivileged Hoes,“ especially if you’re a cop in DC. Don’t Twitter plans for a massacre. Twitter crosses state lines, as does the FBI. Don’t post collections notices on people’s kids’ MySpace pages, even if […]
April 29th 2009
We’ve previously blogged about crime on Craigslist. This post is about something different: retribution. Allow me to confirm what you may already know: When newspapers consider what’s happened to their business model and who is responsible, the first name that comes to mind is often Craigslist. Craigslist Decimated Print Budgets by Giving Away Classifieds Newspapers used […]
April 28th 2009
Recently, the people over at Wikipedia.org have had a bee in their bonnet about a site called WikipediaArt.org. Wikipedia doesn’t like this other site using its name in their domain name, and is threatening to pursue legal action against WikipediaArt.org for trademark infringement. According to WikipediaArt.org: This web site documents performance art work that promotes […]
April 27th 2009
I’m thrilled to be heading to Chicago in June speak at the Business Marketing Association’s Annual Meeting. As you can see, the conference theme is to un-learn and empower brands to better adapt to the dramatically changing world of B-to-B marketing. The “dynamic personalization” dream team Last fall I was part of a really fun […]
April 14th 2009
According to Canada’s last census, there are more than 7.5 million residents in Quebec. Perhaps some of them would like to do business with you. But there’s a hurdle. The French language. In 1977, the National Assembly of the Province of Quebec adopted the Charter of the French Language. In short, it sets a rule […]
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