KEY POINTS:
Companies have every right to protect their brands from encroachments by rivals. A brand is precious because it encapsulates the values of a company and projects its identity to the world.
But before acting to defend their brands, companies should be sure the threat is real, otherwise they may do themselves more harm than good.
If the message seems obvious it is nevertheless one that frequently seems to be ignored.
The latest example, reported in the last issue of the Weekend Herald, is the glitzy shoe brand Jimmy Choo. The shoes retail for $700 to $1000 and were great favourites with Carrie Bradshaw, the central character in Sex and the City.
Such is the prominence of the brand that you might expect the company to feel supremely secure about its position.
But Jimmy Choo is demanding the tiny Kaukapakapa mail order firm Kookychoo.com change its name or face legal action.
>>Jimmy Choo threatens Kookychoo.com with lawsuit
It apparently fears customers might mistake the two brands because each contains the same four letters: choo.
The differences are so obvious they scarcely need pointing out but, for what it's worth, in the shoe brand Choo is a proper name but in the mail order firm's name it is a light colloquialism.
And if that's not enough, do they really expect people to believe customers seeking a $1000 pair of Jimmy Choo shoes are likely instead to spend their money at Kookychoo, which stocks all kinds of trinkets and gift items but, importantly, no shoes?
The ideal response to a threat like this is to tell Jimmy to choof off.
Unfortunately Kookychoo.com has been told the legal bill required to make that message stick would probably be about $50,000.
So it seems Jimmy Choo will succeed in stifling the imagined threat to its brand.
But at least the world will have a clearer idea of the kind of values the brand represents.
