Innocent until proved guilty?

What's in a name? What's in a word, in fact? Words. Humpty Dumpty, as I've said before, made them mean what he wanted them to mean. In the world of business, names mean a lot. But do words mean as much as names, or less?

A mother of two, Dawn Reid, is facing a ‘David and Goliath’ battle with an international drinks company over the name she has given to her vitamin capsules for children. Innocent Drinks objects to her selling a food supplement called Innocent Vitamins, and has asked her to cease trading under that name. But the small-business owner insists the drinks market and the vitamin are totally separate and accused the British-based firm of over-reacting.

This is Dawn's company logo:

All green and very innocent looking. Seems to me it's all about vitamins. Innocent Drinks' logo looks very different. Not only that, but their smoothies tend to sell in stores around the milk section and not in the pharmacy.


Innocent Drinks say people have been calling them up asking whether these are their vitamins. Is that because these callers are genuinely confused, or are they thinking vitamins don't go with smoothies. Would people get confused? Even if they were, they can now know with complete clarity that these two innocents have never had any relationship whatsoever!

The Innocent Drinks "brand" appears very different. But this may not be as innocent as we are led to believe. After all, there are plenty of businesses trading with similar names to other businesses.

Can Continental Airlines be confused with Continental Tyres?


Or can EasyJet be confused with EasySpace?



I don't think the public is that dim. And even if they don't know, would it really bother them? Mostly business is about "brands going forward" to use the jargon. If a brand has a similar name, but is in a dissimilar market place, does the customer care? EasyJet flies people to places and EasySpace gets them on the web. Easy really. Or am I just too innocent?

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1365443/Innocent-Drinks-set-inot-battle-Dawn-Reid-Innocent-Vitamins.html#ixzz1GQmlwGYg

FIFA go red at sight of orange!

FIFA is the international money-making organisation that promotes association football (allegedly!) and promotes its own business vigorously with a ruthless eye for commercial miscreants and cheeky wannabe competitors. This nonsense about the Dutch beer, which I now see is Bavaria, is a bit OTT. But FIFA has always been OTT. Bavaria Brouwerij traditionally gives away orange clothing to fans. Orange is the colour of the Netherlands. This happened in the last World Cup. Budweiser got in a terrible lager lather then.

Then FIFA tried to get Dutch fans to strip off their clothing to their undergarments all because the Bavaria logo was on their shorts. It's all a bit fascistic. Perhaps the FIFA bosses picked up a few tips from the old Stasi or other such delightful outfits.

Many companies see the World Cup as an opportunity to sell more merchandise. In a free market economy fans as well as non-fans should have choice. FIFA has this notion of "official partners". Well, OK as it stands. But that's no reason to take on the MAFIA's code of business practice and try to throttle the competition.