Our previous post on fluid trademarks received some very interesting comments.
The question remains: both from a legal as well as from a marketing or branding point of view, is a changing mark prone to cause dilution if it is the owner itself who is changing the mark? Or does it make a strong mark even stronger?
To give you second example of a fluid trademark: Perrier.
Although pronounced ‘French’, Perrier developed a clever marketing campaign, designed by ad agency Ogilvy & Mather. They played with the pronunciation and made it ‘English’. The trademark PERRIER ons the bottles was replaced by other words ending in “-IER.”, such as “Sexier”, “Crazier”, “Flirtier”, “Sassier”, “Luckier”, “Scarier”, “Prettier” and “Riskier.”
Was this a smart thing to do? From a legal point of view? Or was it a tad on the “Riskier” side, playing a well known trademark like that?
Since it was a short marketing campaign, MarkMatters.com think they should be fine, legally.
What do you think? Please send us your comments below.