Brand News

Booking a competing brand as Google Adword, a tactic called Brand Hijacking, has been common for a while.

In 2006 the decision of a French Court was confirmed, that it is illegal for Google to sell trademarks as Adwords to competitors of the trademark owner. But the French courts required trademark owners to inform Google about ownership of brands.
Google had to pay Euro 300,000 to the plaintiff, Louis Vuitton.

Now in a similar case the Austrian High Court went even further.
In the Austrian case the court ruled, that it is already illegal to book a trademark, that is owned by someone else, as Adword.

In the USA the judge Jeremy Vogel of the district court of San Jose recently decided to hear a similar case against Google.

The two Mustang brands are now competing in the fragrance business.

The European jeans brand Mustang launched its line of perfume and body care through a license in September 2006, picture on top.

The American car brand Mustang, signed a license for a men fragrance to be launched in the USA in July 2007, picture below.

The perfume business is very global – just think of duty free shops – and it has high margins. Therefore the gray market is huge and it is almost impossible to control distribution. The retailers will have a tough time distinguishing the offers.

Will the consumer confuse the two fragrances?
I think that is unlikely, even with both brands showing a very similar horse.

It will be interesting to see, which Mustang comes in first in this race.
Which Mustang are you betting on?

Laut einem Artikel von Brandweek hier, betritt die Wasser Division von Pepsico – via Lizenz – in den USA die Kosmetik Kategorie mit der Marke Aquafina.

Beide Kategorien, Near Water und Kosmetik, sind sehr Wettbewerbsintensive Produktfelder.

Vor einigen Jahren ging die Marke Kneipp den umgekehrten Weg. Bekannt für Wasseranwendungen und außergewöhnliche Körperpflegeprodukte erweiterte Kneipp sein Angebot um fünf Getränke auf Wasserbasis.

Bis jetzt war die Markenerweiterung erfolgreich. In einigen Distributionskanälen verdrängten die Kneipp Getränke sogar den Marktführer Nestle aus den Regalen.

According to an article at Brandweek here, the PepsiCo water division – via licensing – enters the cosmetic category to boost its brand, Aquafina.
The move helps extend the Aquafina brand name from the beverage aisle to the cosmetics aisle.
Both categories, drinks and cosmetics, are highly competitive.

A few years ago, Kneipp went the other way around.
Known for its healthy water treatments and exceptional body care products, Kneipp extended its brand into the functional water category.

So far the extension with five SKUs has been successful. It even pushed category leader Nestle from the shelves in some retail channels.

Sony, already a powerhouse in licensing, announced it will be creating a new team as part of Sony Computer Entertainment for the purpose of licensing intellectual properties. Sony wants to expand its business development and increase awareness of the Sony brand.

It’ll be the job of the team to coordinate the licensing of the PlayStation brand and all recognizable first-party characters for merchandise and entertainment products. It will also handle the licensing of peripherals and other accessories across all PlayStation platforms.

This is supposed to grow the PlayStation business by introducing the brands to a wider audience.