Monster the Energy Drink company and their parent company Hansen Beverages has stirred up quite the hornets nest on the Internet recently by sending out a slew of cease and desist letter/emails to businesses running products/services with similar names as their Monster Problem Energy Drink (link contains N.S.F.W. language, post by Allyn Hane). One of these businesses is the Rock Art Brewery.
In the above video about my take of the Monster Energy Drink fiasco I make a couple of points. Here they are in recap:
- Monster is doing what businesses do every day and should be doing every day in order to stay relevant. If the shoes were flipped, Rock Art Brewery would be doing the same thing. This is evident by the fact they trademarked their beer to begin with.
- Monster and other businesses like them trying to protect their brand are going about things the complete wrong way. Hitting people over the head with a 2×4 is not the best way to get your way. People will either roll over and die, stand up and fight or watch the fireworks that ensue by doing either of these things.
- Monsters best bet at resolving the firestorm that has flared up around them is to get down and dirty and start righting the wrongs. The only way to do that is to treat people like human beings first, then hit them over the head with said 2×4 if an agreement can’t be reached. This approach would serve to limit huge amounts of bad press because you tried your best and that was the final outcome.
What can we learn from all of this craziness that is going and will continue to go on as long as people have super easy ways to communicate and spread ideas?
- Continue to do what businesses do and protect your interests so long as you…
- Treat people like humans and you’ll have less problems.
- Explore other options to reach the same conclusion.
- Tell people why you are doing what you’re doing.
- Then sic the law dogs on your competitor.
Now I am no lawyer and I am not offering any legal advice on whether or not this method screws something up, but I am sure it would probably work much better for all in the end.
What did you think of that awesome intro? That was courtesy of Steve Sherron and his amazing video skills. Be sure to stop by and check him out on his video blog Blogger Lens.
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Tags: Branding, Ideas, Marketing, Monster Energy Drinks, Rock Art Brewery, Strategies, Trademark
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With so many drinks out there in the market, the competetion is high. Aside from protecting your brand, your product has to be unique from all the competetion to be on top of them all. I see your point from the disagreement, each company has to settle their differences face to face and not hitting you at the back.
Hey Josh,
First, yes… I was thinking during the whole intro, “This is AWESOME!” I need one of those. Does Steve do them for a living? It rocks!
Now, on to the Monster issue. I wrote a post about this a couple of days ago. I completely agree with you. Monster has to protect their trademark. BUT, they can assert their trademark without scuttling the small guys. My point is instead of trying to beat them down.
Now the cleanup is going to be a much bigger pain and cost them much more than if they’d just reached out a helping hand.
Thanks for keeping this in front of everyone!
Talk soon,
jtrigsby
Josh, I have no idea what your video was about. I couldn't get past the intro. I kept playing it over and over, rewinding until I tore up my mouse. Intro was Bad-ass! Maybe I'll come back later and actually watch the video, I'm sure it's good. lol!
@jtrigsby, yup I know Steve does a lot with video/audio and whatnot. Not sure if he does exactly that for a living. I agree that taking the time in the beginning to contact the "little" guys and opening a dialog with them would be by far the best option. I see that they have reached some sort of an agreement with Rock Art and hope it works out well for the both of them.
@Mimami, The market and competition is pretty competitive I can see the need for protecting what you have.
Hey Josh, as always, you bring a nice balanced perspective to the issue. But you know me and you know my personality is anything but balanced. I completely agree with your statements about US patent law, but my way of doing things is to go head on and put out the immediate fire, not look for the embers burning underneath.
Also, and I have not said this before, but there is a statement that the Monster Energy Guy made in direct aim at Rock Art on Facebook. The Monster brand manager sent an email explaining the patent and trademark laws, etc to a concerned blogger. I read the whole thing and I was very understanding at that point of what Monster had to do and why… but then, just at the end of the email, the extremely arrogant Monster brand manager decided to say this:
"All this from a Company who has ripped-off a sacred Hopi Indian symbol as the principal logo of their brand, go figure?
Sincerely,
Monster Mark"
Here is the link if you want to read it yourself:
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=17189490280...
so what we have here is an arrogant president of a huge company proving that outside of "the rule of law" he IS out to hurt the little guy. His comment quoted above is what set me off. I feel like dropping an F-bomb right now just thinking about it.
And, BTW– I think 95% of big company CEOs think exactly like this. They look at regular folks as idiots and simpletons… Monster Mark proves my point.
AL
PS–steve, great intro man, you rock brudda
Businesses must proactively protect their brand, some of course (like Apple) can be a little overzealous its all about finding the balance.