Pepsi seems to be revving up the propaganda engines in the Toronto area. Among the frequent new ads is one showing a man wearing a brown delivery-person-type shirt with the red-circle Coca-Cola logo on the breast. He is filling a Coca-Cola can from a Pepsi can, while looking nervously off to one side.
I was a little surprised by this. Is a company allowed to use the logos of its competitors in its advertisements… especially in this possibly disparaging way? Or is Coke going to rap Pepsi’s nose with a lawsuit over this?
Or are both companies merely tentacles of the Great Combine, dancing to their Masters’ tune… ?
As far as the law on this in Canada, I don’t know. (or care. It’s only Canada:P) But I believe that SCOTUS ruled several years ago that in the U.S. commercials could portray competitors products. I’m not 100% sure but I think that case originated from a ketchup commercial. Not certain about that though.
I’m no intellectual property lawyer. Hopefully one may be along in a minute to give you a proper answer. But the thing to bear in mind probably is that the thrust of relevant intellectual property law is primarily to stop competitors using your branding to convince customers that their product is associated with your good reputation. And of course that is precisely the opposite of what Pepsi is doing. The thrust of the ad is “Pepsi is so good that Coke would like to steal its flavour”.
Yes, companies can portray the competition’s product in their ads. It wasn’t always thus: In the 1950s, for example, you couldn’t make reference to your competition in your ads, so companies made stern warnings against using Brand X as opposed to their fair-haired product.
Of course, you could get away with a lot of other things in the 1950s you could be sued over now. Like outright lying. O tempora, O mores.
Interestingly, (or not) I’ve noticed in the UK that companies never mention their rivals in TV adverts, but often do in the way you describe in poster/billboard adverts.
