Editor’s Notes: Booper Soul
March 2008
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First off, I’ve got to give a shout-out to blog poster Vasco DaGameboy for my headline this month. His (or her?) use of this term to refer to the Super Bowl in a Feb. 2, 2006, posting to Techdirt struck me as a super representation of what has become a downright ludicrous trademark battle. Well, it’s not actually a battle because the National Football League, which owns the trademark, has been super effective in scaring off all uses of the event’s name in any context outside of sponsors’ communications.
What started my research into this super silly scuffle was a mailing from the telco/cable/Internet company Qwest that was received by the Who’s Mailing What! Archive, a direct mail research service in the Target Marketing Group. In the self-mailer, Qwest offered customers the chance to win tickets to “football’s hottest game” or “the game in Glendale, AZ, on Feb. 3.” For three panels, the marketer awkwardly danced around the name of the football game, which only served to underscore how far super stupid trademark enforcement has gone.
I can understand the NFL wanting to safeguard the branding value of this major event for its exclusive sponsors. (If you hadn’t noticed, just about every “moment” in the game is funded by an advertiser, not to mention official pre- and post-event shows, and a host of other advertising opportunities.) But it becomes super idiotic when organizations—that bought tickets to offer in contests to their customers and prospects—have to print “football’s hottest ticket on Feb. 3” in their promotions. This mailing from Qwest implied no connection with the NFL or the event, just ownership of two tickets that customers and prospects could win. I think that if you pony up the significant amount of money it costs to purchase tickets to the Super Bowl, you ought to be able to name the event for those tickets.
Is it really that difficult to determine what messaging constitutes implied endorsement and affiliation? Apparently so, since the NFL decided two years ago that it also needed to own the rights to the words “the big game.” For various reasons—including public outrage that, no doubt, did nothing to enhance the NFL’s or the Super Bowl’s brand image—the league dropped its application.
What’s even more interesting is that the NFL might not even be able to win an intellectual property challenge, given that trademarks are meant only to protect against “unauthorized usage that is likely to cause confusion as to source or sponsorship,” according to an article in the Jan. 21, 2008 edition of New Jersey Lawyer. My bet is that Qwest wasn’t interested in getting into a war with the NFL. After all, it might want to be one of those super exclusive sponsors one day.
What started my research into this super silly scuffle was a mailing from the telco/cable/Internet company Qwest that was received by the Who’s Mailing What! Archive, a direct mail research service in the Target Marketing Group. In the self-mailer, Qwest offered customers the chance to win tickets to “football’s hottest game” or “the game in Glendale, AZ, on Feb. 3.” For three panels, the marketer awkwardly danced around the name of the football game, which only served to underscore how far super stupid trademark enforcement has gone.
I can understand the NFL wanting to safeguard the branding value of this major event for its exclusive sponsors. (If you hadn’t noticed, just about every “moment” in the game is funded by an advertiser, not to mention official pre- and post-event shows, and a host of other advertising opportunities.) But it becomes super idiotic when organizations—that bought tickets to offer in contests to their customers and prospects—have to print “football’s hottest ticket on Feb. 3” in their promotions. This mailing from Qwest implied no connection with the NFL or the event, just ownership of two tickets that customers and prospects could win. I think that if you pony up the significant amount of money it costs to purchase tickets to the Super Bowl, you ought to be able to name the event for those tickets.
Is it really that difficult to determine what messaging constitutes implied endorsement and affiliation? Apparently so, since the NFL decided two years ago that it also needed to own the rights to the words “the big game.” For various reasons—including public outrage that, no doubt, did nothing to enhance the NFL’s or the Super Bowl’s brand image—the league dropped its application.
What’s even more interesting is that the NFL might not even be able to win an intellectual property challenge, given that trademarks are meant only to protect against “unauthorized usage that is likely to cause confusion as to source or sponsorship,” according to an article in the Jan. 21, 2008 edition of New Jersey Lawyer. My bet is that Qwest wasn’t interested in getting into a war with the NFL. After all, it might want to be one of those super exclusive sponsors one day.
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