trademark

You cannot control the message

My last post concerning Scotts/Miracle-Gro's trademarking a phrase thought up by someone else brought us this comment from Robert Woodman, of The British Gardener. "I was in ‘shock and ore’ to read what Scotts has done with trade-marking ‘you can grow that’. I guess this is ‘the taste of a new generation’, but its not ‘M’m M’m good’. As a writer I like to ‘get ready to rumble’ but I want to ‘be all that you can be’ and choose my words carefully. Still this kind of stuff can ‘put a tiger in your tank’. Scotts ‘just do it’ attitude for their marketing doesn’t leave me with a ‘we love to see you smile’ feeling, but ‘it’s so easy, even a caveman can do it’. Sure it’s ‘taking care of business’ to come up with these slogans, but to rip it off from a blogger and prevent others from using it leaves me to think that Scotts is ‘Home of the Whopper’. ‘Have it your way’, we can show disapproval by buying from the competition, words that ‘melts in your mouth, not in your hands’. What ever happened to freedom of speech, doesn’t it extend to the written word as well as the spoken word? As always Trey, your blog is ‘good to the last drop’ when exposing ‘pork, the other white meat’."

It's as if by trademarking someone else's phrase you bring some of the enthusiasm and "mojo" that created the original idea to your business. It just doesn't work that way anymore. These days the customers are often the ones creating the content, via social media. That's the big news. You cannot control the message. People will talk about you, with or without your input.

Thanks to Robert for the entertaining comment.