Coach v. Target

The Wall Street Journal reports that Coach filed a suit against Target in federal court last week. Coach claims that Target sold a counterfeit Coach bag, whereas Target claims that it is a real Coach bag. Target is not licensed to distribute Coach bags.

The WSJ article mentions HR 683 as one of the reasons designers and manufacturers are getting more aggressive protecting their brands and designs. Right now, trademark law, not copyright law, is the law that designers may use to protect their designs, claiming trade dress rights in design. American copyright law is not protective of designs. HR 683, if voted into law, will protect famous marks against blurring and tarnishing. One can argue that selling a Coach bag at Target tarnishes the brand. The shopping experience is hardly the same. Well, Coach does not sell pop corn and cheap hot dogs inside their store, for instance.

The WSJ article quotes a Target statement that describes its clients as "guests." The goods sold at high-end stores are becoming more and more irrelevant, but creating an original shopping experience is becoming the most important aspect of selling, for luxury retailers and discounters alike. Wal Mart is getting preppy, and may even benefit from selling khaki pants to its employees. But I digress. Is selling high end goods out of their original retail environment blurring?

HR 683 update

INTA reports on its site that Congress passed HR 683.

Branding loosing control

There is a very interesting article today in the WSJ today about "Chavs," a group of, well, partying-loud kind of persons, that may be a threat to luxury branding...

Their sartorial choices are, ahem, on the flashy, if not the gaudy side. Lots of big and, probably, fake, jewelry, and brands, brands, brands! They favor (favored?) a certain Burberry baseball cap. Since Chavs have been very naughty, and have been partying quite hard, Burberry baseball cap became a symbol of infamy, and has been banned altogether by some night clubs. Burberry has decided to stop producing them.

But that's not all. Prada has stopped distributing a certain type of black Prada shoes, that became also part of the Chav's uniform. A Prada spokesman is quoted in the article as saying:" When you are a brand appealing to many people around the world, it's impossible to control what gets into the imagination of people."

This comment reveals quite a bit about branding. Let's take a basic shoe, stamp it Prada. It is now a shoe, with the name Prada on it. Marketing professionals must now sprinkle Pixie dust on these shoes, to create an aura of good taste, luxury, around them. Alas, a group of unpolished youngsters start using the shoes, and thus interfere beetween the product and the marketing efforts.

Will H.R. 683 be urgently amended to include dilution of a trademark by unpolished consummers?