Killing the Gecko

[gwffantrav]

news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060421/us_nm/financial_berkshire_geico_dc

This is actually interesting...does Geico have a legit leg to stand on? If they do, why doesn't Coke sue Pepsi over their Pepsi Challenge they used to have? It makes Coke look bad....

Heck, during the NCAA Tourny, State Farms had commercials on the whole time saying they're better than Allstate, Geico, Progressive...

I could probably think of many other things along those lines, but actually find it interesting and creative, since I've come from a background along those lines.

So who would you side on?

[offspring515]

Well the Pepsi challenge thing doesn't really apply. They aren't suing because it makes their company look bad, they are suing because the ads seem to infringe on their copyrights.

In other words, Pepsi can show people saying they enjoy the taste of pepsi more than coke. But if Coke created a jingle that sounded really close to the jingle that Pepsi used for their Britney Spears ads (remember those, when she was smoking hot? I do. Quite fondly.) that would be a copyright infringement.

That's the word from my totally legally ignorant a** so do with it what you will lol.

[gwffantrav]

You may be right offspring. I work in media/communications for UPS (I work in Louisville...the Atlanta media does the commercials, etc).

I may have to e-mail a colleague about this since many other companies, FED EX, DHL have used our brand/truck, etc in their commercials.

I still remember us talking about a DHL commercial about a year ago when there was a railroad crossing with a UPS truck on one side and a FED EX truck on the other. The drivers were looking at one another like an old west showdown.

"I think" a DHL truck/train came rushing by between the two of them. We always wondered how they were able to use our brand/colors, etc.

Here is an interesting bit of media trivia about UPS. The producers of Cast Away (the movie) originally wanted to use UPS as the company Tom Hanks worked for. But since the plane crashed, UPS didn't want to be associated with any kind of airline crash because they thought it would look bad for business....that their planes weren't reliable. So they went with FED EX.

But here is something weird. I recently watched Dodgeball and when they had their uniforms shipped to them for the tourney, and the S & M "uniforms" were delivered instead, it was UPS. I thought that was kinda weird as it would seem to make the drivers look bad.

[GrumpyBigBee]

it must be nice to be so rich and to be able to sue people...

[gwffantrav]

Personally, I'd take it as a compliment...hell, they're paying you respect by mentioning you. You must be doing something right.