Is the Pillsbury Doughboy a Big Fat Bully?
On KSL News last night I saw a story that is the classic David vs. Goliath story. Then I read about it on City Weekly (so should you). Pillsbury is suing a local Utah business for copyright infringement. The name of the company that sells cookie dough is My Dough Girl. Apparently that is too close to Pillsbury’s trademark Doughboy name.
So I guess that it also means that you can’t have a company called Dough Mama or Dough Daddy, Dough Brother or Dough Sister. The American Fork company Flour Girls and Dough Boys may be next. If your name is close to Doughboy, you could lose a lot of real dough. My Dough Girl plans to change their name in response — which could cost about $50k.
Sadly, My Dough Girl plans to meet the demands – because they cannot afford to fight it.
Thus, the My Dough Girl name will disappear because Cromar plans to acquiesce to the corporation’s demands. While she would like to fight General Mills, “I’m afraid I’ll be broke and homeless if I do that,” she says.
While Pillsbury have won by brute strength, a move like this is a bad PR move. It leaves people with a bad taste for a brand with a sweet image. I know it has left a bad taste in mine. With social media, people have more power. They will boycott and hate the company for their bad faith efforts.
My friend Julienne sent this tweet.
Here’s another:
There’s already a Facebook Page against the move, which is also a target of General Mills lawyers. “Corporate counsel for General Mills has asked Cromar to not talk to the media about the squabble and to kill the Facebook page” — which was started by her supporters.
I hope this brings a lot of new business and support to My Dough Girl. It certainly makes General Mills look like a bully. I wish I were an artist and could draw the image of the Doughboy bully to illustrate how I feel about it. One thing I love about social media is that it’s pretty hard to squelch disagreement and it gives people a public voice that they didn’t have before. You can’t really control it and that can be good in cases like this. Social media is a huge asset to freedom of speech.
All of this reminds me of another sweet lawsuit involving cupcakes.
7 Responses to “Is the Pillsbury Doughboy a Big Fat Bully?”
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August 3rd, 2010 at 11:16 am
It’s easy to defend the little guy (or girl in this situation), especially because Dough Girl makes such tasty treats and we have a face with the name. It’s local. It’s close to home.
In this case, I think Cromar is smart. Legally, she doesn’t have much of a case when you’re talking about same industry and potential brand confusion. I’ve seen businesses lose trademark cases with a lot less similarity between brand names than this one.
I don’t view it as acquiescing to the big brand, but rather as a sound business move. It hurts, but the longer the case gets drawn out, the more the business will suffer, regardless of the outcome. Her product is good enough to sustain the name change.
I think it brings to light a bigger issue. Should social media be used to squelch the law? And will bloggers use these instances to become informed about what the law is and why it was instated, rather than just raise their voices in protest?
August 3rd, 2010 at 11:26 am
Scott,
I think she’s smart too – I wouldn’t fight it either. It’s almost impossible to find names that aren’t taken. Plus, as the article I link to points out Dough and Girl are pretty common nouns. It doesn’t matter though because most of the time people won’t fight it (too expensive).
Doughboy is actually a term from history – so maybe Pillsbury has no right to it anyway. From Wikipedia: “Doughboy is an informal term for an American soldier, especially members of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in World War I.” I wouldn’t think it would be allowed to trademark an informal term.
This isn’t squelching the law. I’m not a lawyer and am not commenting on the case as such. I’m saying it’s a bad PR move.
- Janet
August 3rd, 2010 at 12:15 pm
The history behind the word is interesting. Another big company has the “Doughboy” name, but they were also formed 30 years before Pillsbury’s ad campaign, so Pillsbury can’t do much.
As a PR practitioner, what’s the appropriate way for a big company to go after a little company for trademark infringement/brand confusion?
August 3rd, 2010 at 1:24 pm
I’m happy to see that the public voice is being heard. Reminds me of the Rainmaker movie that was on the other night. The big guy trying to squish the little guy and giving their lawyers something to do. I’ve never been a huge fan of lawyers who have nothing to do.
August 3rd, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Scott,
That’s a good question. Let me think about it. In this case I believe it’s not as clear cut (see quote):
“McDonalds is a proper name: not the word “dough” followed by a noun. Corporations, Cromar says, shouldn’t be allowed to own the English language and enforce that ownership with an army of attorneys. “At what point are there no words available?” she asks. “Every word seems to be owned, in some fashion.”
-Janet
August 3rd, 2010 at 8:07 pm
It’s only a bad PR move because it was publicized. I’m sure that Pillsbury was counting on quietly and quickly sweeping this under the rug. It does seem like Dough Girl probably capitalized on the brand identification since she is in a similar business. I’m sure, at the time, she thought it was quite clever and would draw attention to her business. It may seem unfortunate that this has happened, but if she gets her new business name out there all the sympathy and publicity will be to her benefit.
August 25th, 2010 at 9:44 pm
@Scott.
i am agree with your comment . you are right . Regarding to ” “Every word seems to be owned, in some fashion.”