UPDATE - Coca-Cola gives away its trademark in SL?
By Adam Reuters
(Adds reaction from Coca-Cola executive as told to the Rebang blog)
Second Life blogger Vint Falken reports that her unauthorized Coke-themed outfit, pulled from SLExchange earlier this month, has been reinstated along with an email from SLExchange stating:
We have spoken to Coca-Cola and they have released their trademark to SL Merchants. Therefore, any of your items that were disabled on June 7, 2007 have been retrieved.
Falken’s Coke outfit isn’t yet back up on SLExchange but is on sale at rival SL marketplace SLBoutique here, and visible in the picture below.
Back in April, Coca-Cola launched its “Virtual Thirst” contest with the help of the marketing firms crayon and Millions of Us: “Imagine a world in which a simple vending machine could dispense — not Coca-Cola — but the ESSENSE of
Coca-Cola: refreshment, joy, unity, experience.”
With the deadline for virtual vending machine submissions long past, has Coke given Second Life residents carte blanche to remix and profit from one of the world’s most recognizable and valuable brands?
Apparently so, according to SLExchange staff member Tigress Stormwind.
“We contacted Coca-Cola to inquire and were told that they are allowing products with their trademark in SL, under certain conditions,” she said in a Second Life interview with Reuters. “They pointed out that they did not want anything overtly sexual or violent in content … Technically they haven’t ‘released’ their trademark, but they have given SL residents permission to use it.”
Coca-Cola’s David Vanderpoel told the Rebang blog “that Coca-Cola did not, at any time, contact SLExchange to remove items.”
The blog adds:
For those people who feel the need to use the Coca-Cola trade dress in ways that are detrimental to the brand’s reputation, Coca-Cola is more interested in establishing a dialog to help them understand why people want to attack them in the first place than they are in trying to stop them.This is by far the smartest position I’ve seen a company take lately.
Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t think the competition could have been set up a little better, but the fact that they engaged the community, they adjusted (to some degree) after competition launch, and are now taking this extraordinary stance is, honestly, a welcome surprise to me. My hope now is that word will get out and other companies will follow their lead.
So much for the theory that old brands can’t learn new tricks.
