Wal-Mart Seeks Smiley Face Rights

BBC Business News

Over the past few years Wal-Mart has had its fair share of legal trouble. This time they find themselves in a dispute over the trademarking of the company's ubiquitous logo, the smiley face. Since 1996, Wal-Mart has used this image in the United States on their uniforms, commercials, and promotional signs. Until recently, Wal-Mart had never thought to try and trademark the smiley face because it had always been part of the public domain in the United States. Now however, Franklin Loufrani, alleged smiley face inventor, wants to trademark the logo in the United States and charge Wal-Mart for its use. Loufrani owns a London based company named SmileyWorld that owns the rights to the image in over 80 countries internationally. SmileyWorld and Wal-Mart are now battling it out before the US Patent and Trademark Office. Wal-Mart wishes it did not have to engage in this dispute but understands the logo's importance to its company. Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley said, "It is kind of ironic that this whole dispute is about a smiley face. But in the end it is what it is: it's a mark that we have a tremendous investment in and is very closely identified with our company." It is clear by Wal-Mart's actions, just how important a company's logo can be. It also goes to show just how careful one has to be in this age of consumerism to clearly mark what belongs to you, and what belongs to the public.

~Hannah Dilworth

Men's Corner: Kiton Plans Revival of Fragrance Business

“Fragrance has long been known as an entry point to a luxury brand for consumers, but lately fashion firms have used scent to freshen up from an image standpoint.” Kiton will introduce a new men’s fragrance this March called Kiton Black. It is being licensed through the Estee Lauder Cosmetics. It is a “couture version” of the original Kiton fragrance, which was introduced in 1996. With so many new launches of fragrances this year, it doesn’t necessarily add new interest to the products, but more like confusion. But a revival of a classic is more notable. Kiton Black is a blend of fruits (Calabrian lemon, red berries), flowers (violet, cardamom, cedarwood), leather, amber, and vetiver. Along with Kiton and Lauder,the gragrance was created along with fragrance supplier Symrise.
The intention of the fragrance is for it to be exclusive. The previous perfume is carried in 120 stores including Barneys New York and Saks Fifth Avenue. With the new release, it is going to be sold at Kiton’s East 54th Street Location, and will be sold at several Blomingdale’s for a period of 90 days. The pricing will be $65 for a 75-ml eau de toilette and $85 for a 125-ml eau de toilette. A 125-ml aftershave will accompany the fragrance as well and will be $65. The estimate retail year-end sales is expected to be $500,000. There will also be a promotional/advertising strategy for Kiton Black, based on vials on cards and sets of the fragrance paired with cufflinks from the brand.

Kiton is legendary with its expensive fine tailored and made to measure suits. I think that a revival through fragrance can help them revive their company through the sales of the fragrance and also can boost the sales of their suits. I think it’s going to sell well because of its exclusivity.

-victoria gutierrez

A "Diddy" of a Lawsuit

Sean Combs has been known to change his name throughout the years, but finally his new alias "Diddy" has gotten him into a bit of trouble. A London based record company, who produces the music artist Richard "Diddy" Dearlove recently sued Sean Combs for using his name. With the growing popularity of websites such as Myspace and YouTube, both sites have become key marketing platforms for international artists. The record company has told Sean Combs to either stop using those sites or change his name.
A problem for Richard "Diddy" Dearlove has been when fans type in "Diddy" they come across Sean Combs, instead of Mr. Dearlove.

"It may be tough for him, but that is just unfortunate," said Purvis. "He has made his bed, he should lie in it." Its all in a name...

cnnmoney.com

Jade Furtado

Aguilera and P&G Sign Fragrance Deal

Procter & Gamble Prestige Products has recently created a long-term licensing deal to create Christina Aguilera fragrances. The company, which creates a number of well-known products, such as Tide, Pampers and Crest, saw Christina as the perfect choice. "We were looking for a brand to complement our portfolio," said Heike Hindenlang, global marketing director, prestige products at P&G. She also added that the company was looking to target a young, trendy consumer. They also liked that Christina had global appeal. "A lot of people are doing celebrity fragrances. It is one thing to do it if the person is just a celebrity and another if she inspires people and builds brand loyalty," continued a P&G spokeswoman. "P&G is absolutely not building a portfolio of celebrity brands. We are very much driven by what the consumer wants. We're not into churning and burning."

I feel that P & G's choice to have Christina Aguilera as the face of their new perfume was a poor one. I do not feel that a girl who is known for her "dirrty" image is a good role model to target to a young crowd. Also, I feel that Christina's popularity is on the downfall and therefore, the perfume won't have a huge following. I am however interested in seeing how Procter & Gamble will market this perfume.

Nicole Held

2/1/2007

Stella McCartney Deal Targets Australia

Today unveiled another great collaboration for Stella McCartney, she signed a deal with Target stores in Australia. These Tagert store are not at all associated withe the US stores. the 42 piece collection will be launched in selected Target Australia stores on March 12th. The Austraila relitors have different owner then the US stores and and was the Only Target store to have trademarked the Stella Items for the store. the prices will range from$30 to $155, this makes it more accessible designs for a lower buget income. This target deal is just one of the latest partnerships McCartney has formed to boost her brands profile and her company's bottom line. Other collaborations included the limited edition accessories collection with LeSportsac, and a line of fashion forward activewear for Adidas and a one-off clothing collection for H&M in november 2005. All of her collaborations had to endure trademarking and licensing as these companies were not Stella McCartneys companies. Stella McCartneys name will be licensed under Target, same with H&M and Adidas. this really gives a chance for people not in the fashion industry to get a glimpse into the designs of Stella McCartney.

By: Dana Vladimir

Saks Tailors Retro Logo to Its Strategy

Washington Post
January 26, 2007
by Ylan Q. Mui



Roxanne Roik





Saks Fifth Avenue is known as one of the finest luxury department stores. However, in recent years business has declined due to a conflict in its retail image. Saks had always catered to older wealthy women with traditional tastes, but competition from stores such as Neiman Marcus seems to have contributed to "an identity crisis", according to chief executive Steve Sadove, for Saks' own image. The store has tried to appeal to a younger market by introducing trendier merchandise, conflicting with the particular tastes of the store's traditionalist clientele. In an attempt to salvage the image that made Saks a success, it has licensed a new logo, a square logo with a "retro" feel. The sleeker symbol has "Saks Fifth Avenue" written in cursive in a black square, an attempt to create a distinguishable signature symbol for the store. The article discussed Saks' attempts to restore its image and attract their desired demographic of wealthy 35-55 year old women, their "classic customer". The company is even launching a private-label Saks Fifth Avenue Collection, with "Signature, Classic, and Sport" lines and restoring the petites section. All of these attempts to restore Saks Fifth Avenue to its glory days of catering to a high end clientele in my opinion, may very well work. The article cited that sales did indeed increase for the company as a result. I think this licensing revival is an excellent strategic move for the company because it will enable Saks to redefine itself to customers and bring back those "classic" customers it may have been losing. Licensing a brand with a successful logo is essential for bringing in good business, because a logo is the most recognizable representation of a company and the most influential component in advertising for a company. A new logo will indicate to consumers that Saks has changed and perhaps overcome its "identity crisis", sparking the interest of potential new clients as well as possibly renewing the interest of previous clients. Therefore, I think licensing a new brand logo is an excellent move for Saks!

Paying YouTube content creators easier said than done

NYTIMES.COM
January 31, 2007
Greg Sandoval, for News.com
Unlike many who post widely watched content on YouTube, Stephen Voltz and Fritz Grobe were angered by their video's popularity on the site.

Fans had posted the clip, "The Diet Coke & Mentos Experiment," at YouTube without permission. Voltz and Grobe were flattered, but the "Mentos" video earned $30,000 at Revver.com, another video-sharing site that pays content creators, and the pair believed they could have doubled that total had the clip not been made available for free on YouTube.
In the future, a budding video auteur trying to turn a buck may not have to worry about YouTube siphoning traffic. YouTube Chief Executive Chad Hurley told an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last weekend that the video-sharing site plans to compensate video creators.
The No. 1 question industry insiders are asking is whether someone can profit from posting clips from episodes of Friends or Lost or other material that doesn't belong to them.
That's a crucial difference between YouTube and most of the sites that already share revenue, said Oliver Luckett, one of Revver's cofounders. Metacafe and Revver screen clips before they go online so they aren't paying for pirated material. The screening process should guarantee that ads will appear alongside clips that are appropriate to an advertiser's message.

"Clearly, YouTube, which tells users they don't want copyright-protected material illegally posted on the site, doesn't want to end up paying people for posting what someone else owns. But with such a big audience, experts say, YouTube will need to install a system that accurately tracks and handles payments to a massive list of posters. The company says that more than 60,000 clips are uploaded to the site each day. And that it is only fair for the creators to get some money for helping them make YouTube so popular."

By: Christina Hilken