Best Buy Goes After Polo Shirt Bloggers
We all understand that a company’s brand and logo and image are extremely important assets that need to be protected. And trademark law is designed to protect trademark owners (and also to protect the public from being confused or scammed). But this one is a little tough to understand.In April of 2006, a street-comedy group called Improv Everywhere designed a prank at a New York City Best Buy. Eighty people put on blue polo shirts and khaki pants and walked around the store. That link has pictures and video from the “mission.” It’s pretty funny, as the customers think they’re employees. Employees are baffled.
It was popular online, so Improv Everywhere designed and sold polo shirts that look just like Best Buy’s. There’s no question it uses the same typeface, same design, everything. There’s also no question that the shirts are not sanctioned by Best Buy. Here’s the original “ad” for the polo shirt (which has now been pulled).
In late November, Best Buy sent a Cease & Desist letter to Improv Everywhere. Yesterday, they sent a C&D to Laughing Squid a San Francisco blog which wrote about the T-shirt sale.
We called Best Buy this morning, and they told me they were going to backpedal on the Laughing Squid letter. In fact, they sent a letter apologizing. But they stand by the letter to Improv Everywhere. Dawn Bryant, Best Buy spokeswoman told me, “We want to protect our mark to ensure it’s integrity. We don’t have to wait until damage to our brand occurs, we want to protect it in advance.”
(Thanks to local blogger Matt Johnson for tipping me to this story last night!)