Lawsuit in Aisle 5

A Dummy's Puppet's Ramblings - from Chip Martin, Puppet
Mannequin American views and guidelines on marketing/PR trends, news from the world of puppets and ventriloquism, bits of humor and other interesting but useless information. I post every Tuesday and Friday.
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Lawsuit Frenzy in Paper Products' Aisle

Who knew that those little quilts on paper towels and toilet paper are a very big deal in federal courts?

Procter & Gamble Co. filed suit against Georgia-Pacific alleging bow-tie patterns in new-and-improved Brawny paper towels infringe the trademark bow-tie shapes in the quilts of P&G's Bounty Extra Soft. The lawsuit claims that Brawny's "Great New Look" is "an obvious attempt to trade in on the goodwill, reputation and commercial success of Bounty Extra Soft." (Everyone who was aware that Brawny has bow-tie patterns, raise your hand. No one? I thought so.)
 

This is the latest in a series of lawsuits among the paper powers. In March G-P sued P&G alleging false advertising by Bounty. P&G settled, agreeing to modify claims. That suit alleged that while the quilts may have been thicker on improved Bounty, the towels weren't. (You may have to read that sentence again before it makes sense.)

G-P also sued Kimberly-Clark Corp. alleging quilt shapes on Cottonelle Ultra toilet paper infringe on diamond patterns of G-P's Quilted Northern. "To make matters worse, Kimberly-Clark's new packaging ... prominently features a dog snuggled in a quilt with a diamond design," G-P noted in its complaint. (Aren't those little quilt shapes on toilet paper the things that stick to your butt? Who'd want to copy that design?)

G-P also sued P&G in October alleging Charmin infringed its trademark diamond shapes. P&G settled that suit in December, pledging to modify its design.

I wonder who's paying for all of these lawsuits? Oh, yeah. That would be we consumers. Excuse me while I go to Wal-Mart and pick up a roll of generic, non-patterned paper towels which seem to do an adequate job of wiping up spills ... and don't include a hissy-fit excise tax for suing competitors.

Here's What's Wrong With Wikipedia (and maybe the Internet

 I try to never use WIKIPEDIA ... and here's why.

Maurice Jarre, a French composer, died in March. I never heard of him, but apparently he was very famous so the news of his passing was published in newspapers around the world. Many of the obituaries included this well-known quote by Jarre. "One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head, that only I can hear."

Here's the problem. Those words were not uttered by the Oscar-winning composer. They were written by 22-year-old Shane Fitzgerald, an undergraduate student at University College Dublin. Mr. Fitzgerald said he placed the quote on Wikipedia as an experiment to show how journalists use the Internet as a primary resource. Fitzgerald posted the quote on Wikipedia late at night after news of Jarre's death broke.  (Note: The quote had no referenced sources and was therefore taken down by moderators of Wikipedia within minutes. However, Fitzgerald put it back a few more times until it was finally left up on the site for more than 24 hours.)

Fitzgerald was shocked by the result of his experiment. "I didn't expect it to go that far. I expected it to be in blogs, but not in mainstream quality papers," he said. The hoax remained undiscovered for weeks until Fitzgerald e-mailed offending newspapers to tell them that they had published an inaccurate quote.

While many media outlets corrected their original stories, today the quote remains intact on many blogs, Web sites and newspapers ... and undoubtedly will remain so for years to come ... perpetuating the falsehood.

We get most of our information from the Internet these days. But often the information isn't accurate and no one is accountable for the errors, hoaxes and falsehoods. (For all you know, I just made this whole story up.) I have no answers. I'm just frightened by the dangers.

Who Would Play This Game?

Playboy has granted a license for a massive multi-player online (MMO) game in which you are the manager for an upcoming playboy model. (If you know anyone who would purchase this game you may be sleazy-by-association.)

According to the developer players take the roles of crack talent agents managing the careers of some of Playboy's hottest up-and-coming models. From the press release, "Combining the best elements of trading card and turn-based gaming, Playboy Manager is the only online game to feature exclusive content from Playboy, including videos and photos of breathtaking Playboy models." (Wait a minute, my computer screen just fogged up.)

There are a lot of jokes here, but if I go any farther it's going to get me in trouble. A release date has not yet been announced for the game. 

Every Type of Business is Being Forced to Market

Because of the downturn in the economy in Germany, brothels are running promotions that offer discounts including all you can eat, drink and whatever specials for one all inclusive fee... which can be as low as 70 Euros for an all day pass good from 10 am to 4 pm. (Seems like a little overkill considering most patrons probably only make use of 3 to 10 minutes.)

They're also offering discounts for seniors, (I should book a Lufthansa flight for Dale) taxi drivers and golfers.  And they're introducing loyalty cards and a few other things that I've decided not to include on this blog.

As Stephanie Klee, a prostitute in Berlin said, "Even if a few luxury brothels were weathering the storm because of their wealthy regular clientele, many were struggling. Just about everyone's turning to advertising in one form or another. If the consumer electronics shop and the optician come out with rebates and special promotions, why shouldn't we try the same thing?"

No word on how marketing firms are positioning themselves to "serve" this niche market.

Beaker Wins a Webby Award

Beaker's original YouTube video "Ode to Joy" has won a Webby Award ... the "People's Voice" award, to be exact ... for best music video.

Muppet fans braved inclement weather, mudslides, and swarms of locusts to make it to their computers and vote for Beaker.

As of this writing, Beaker's video has received over 5 million views on YouTube. That's a lot of people watching Beaker butcher Beethoven. Click here to view the 1.5 minute video "Ode to Joy". It's amusing.