Trend: Lawyers hurting marketing effectiveness.

Ok no big news here really. But I have noticed something recently that Adrian’s last post about the Bravia spot reminded me of… copyright and trademark law is TOTALLY fcuked up by current trends – whether it’s viral micro content ‘chunks’ to be passed around, wom, co-creation or branded entertainment, all the standard rules trademark lawyers follow need to be flipped on their head, and most of the things they recommend (read ‘mandate’ for most companies) to “protect” company control over things work in opposition to the strategy.

Case in point... I recently heard about a legal team preventing a particular piece of language being used for a campaign “because it was an adjective that the brand can’t trademark”.

Yes that’s right, the last thing the average lawyer wants is any danger of your tagline/campaign idea actually being used by any real people in conversation!!… Honestly! What more to say.. these people have degrees and are paid a ton of money, you think it would be reasonable to expect them to rise above moron status. But no, they’re lawyers of the “Just say no everytime, wait for the check and your job is safe in corporate America" school. We’d be better off and (much happier) with Karl Pilkington giving legal advice.

End rant.