Left Image: An impoverished Darfur child is shown holding an LV-like purse, image sold as a T-shirt from artist, now being sued, see Hi-Res version.
Thanks to Søren Storm Hansen for bringing this to my attention.
It could have been your brand
It could have been Rolex, Lexus, Gucci, or even your brand, sadly for LV, it was theirs.
A 26 year old artist named Nadia Plesner has been sued by Louis Vuitton for brand jacking their famous purses in a anti-genocide campaign.
The artist was trying to make a point that the media cares more for Paris Hilton extravaganza’s more than the genocide in the nation of Darfur.
Nadia states her intentions for the grass roots campaign:
“My illustration Simple Living is an idea inspired by the medias constant cover of completely meaningless things.
My thought was: Since doing nothing but wearing designerbags and small ugly dogs appearantly is enough to get you on a magasine cover, maybe it is worth a try for people who actually deserves and needs attention.
When we’re presented with the same images in the media over and over again, we might start to believe that they’re important.
As I was reading the book “Not on our watch” by Don Cheadle and John Prendergast this summer, I felt horrified by the fact that even with the genocide and other ongoing atrocities in Darfur, Paris Hilton was the one getting all the attention. Is it possible that show business have outruled common sense?
If you can’t beat them, join them. This is why I have chosen to mix the cruel reality with showbiz elements in my drawing.”
LV: “Cease and Desist”
Luxury brands certainly have teams of brand police within Marketing to ensure their products aren’t being misplaced or improperly positioned, and have taken action by first sending a cease and desist letter (notice they “applaud the efforts) PDF.
Nadia: “Free Speech”
Nadia then sent a return note, stating this was her ability to self-express and claimed the logo was not referring to LV in particular (PDF).
LV files lawsuit
The letter was not met well, and LV has now filled suit against Nadia, claiming damages of over $20,000 a day, each day the campaign is continued.
The Groundswell begins
Since then the Darfur has grown in awareness, having now been on Digg, a Facebook group formed, spread in the news, and hundreds of blogs pointing to her site.
LV has two a few options
Here’s my take, from what I can tell, Louis Vuitton (and the dog) have nothing to do with Darfur, and their brand is being dragged through the African mud. Their response is pretty standard and expected, to protect the image and brand that they’ve been working to build. I’m sympathetic to them getting brand jacked, as they’ve not done anything to occur this unwanted attention.
Option 1: Continue legal path: Continue this path and settle with Nadia, given the many lawyers they have access to and resources, they will likely win a copyright infringement for the design being on another paid product.
Option 2: Join the campaign: They could drop the suit, and work with the Save Dafur organization to help raise funds by doing events, creating a specific product, or help promote the cause. This too has it’s downsides, the brand will be brought into the human rights spotlight, and if they have any dirt in this arena (perhaps oversees manufacturing) they’ll be in turn scrutinized. Secondly, this would be a nod to activitists everywhere to brand jack major brands in order to get support –and funding, the cycle will continue.
Option 3: Redirect focus on issues: Submitted by John Bell. I enjoyed John’s option so much, that I’ve embedded it here on the post as an update. “What they could do is work with Nadia and other artists to host discussions about media focus. They could partner with a neutral party like my friends at ifocos.org to steward the conversation. Keep the discussion away from luxury brands (which is not Nadia’s point anyhow). LV can become part of teh solution without taking on the brunt of an issue they do not own.”
Option 4: Walk away: Submitted by Alison Byrne Fields: “Drop the suit. Walk away and wait for the dust to settle. This little hullabaloo will have no long term negative impact on their brand.”
I’m weighing both options here for LV, there’s really not a great way out of it for them. I believe they are collateral damage, having done no wrong to invoke this groundswell, yet this is a nod to what could easily happen to other brands.
I asked my Twitter community to voice their opinion, on the topic, here’s what was said in public
ronbailey: – why not just donate a few bucks to the cause in exchange for her NOT using LV products in her campaign?
Dan Lewis: legalities aside, I’d be mighty upset if my name were wrongly associated with genocide. the artist is morally wrong here, no doubt
Alberto Nardelli: besides LV point being morally disturbing, IP case doesn’t stand: would be like campbells suing warhol
Kim Pearson: I’m a former PR person, not a lawyer, but I’d argue that LV is doing itself more harm by its response, not protecting its brand.
Ed Saipetch: ironically in the same vain, I heard the (RED) campaign benefits retailers and product producers much much more than the AIDS fight
Rainne: I say not, b/c the artist did not use the vuitton pattern, she simply invoked its similarity.
mlogan: They turned this into a big story and managed to put themselves on the wrong side of a humanitarian crisis. Smooth
bethdunn: it’s another case of a company doing more harm than good to their brand by trying to halt something they can’t control
ronbailey: how has LV been harmed by Nadia’s campaign? – She was poking fun at celebrity culture in general, not LV in particular
ronbailey: They could have easily turned a blind eye to the whole episode.
Ok, you weigh in, If you were the CMO, what should LV do?
LV shouldn’t over-react to this. it’s clearly a bigger social issue that’s being discussed here and not about the brand per se. as you mentioned in your tweet, it could happen to any other brand.
it’s a statement from the artist. let’s respect that and LV should come in from a social perspective.
LV overrated, big time. The hole they are digging for themselves is growing wider and deeper. Unless they swallow their pride and stop now, they will win in court, and lose in the marketplace.
I think LV should have left this alone. I personally had no idea the bag was anything special and I suspect many people felt the same way. If you’re not a buyer of this kind of bag why would you know or care about the bag being carried. This issue has gone from being something 500 people knew and cared about to a big issue discussed across the internet.
The other problem for LV is the lure of that brand is in what you don’t know about it. Somehow I don’t think the magic of the brand is in the wonderful hand stitching and quality delivered by people who have been doing it for a lifetime in some obscure monastery in the Italian hills. I suspect the reality is somewhat different and these bags are wacked out in a factory between the order of bags for Walmart and JC Penny. The more people know about LV the less alluring the brand.
“Brand-Jacked”> Please.
It’s parody. The Supreme Court has upheld the use of copyrighted material in art as Parody, as Sec. 107 allows. Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. (1994)
in an ideal world this would have been settled privately. I think LV underestimated the possibility of this story becoming big. I still believe it is not big enough to hurt LV business and I doubt it ever will be.
however I don’t agree that LV could use that as an opportunity to take a stance on Darfur and for two reasons. one, that would be very amateurish. LV has never been involved in similar causes, they are just sponsors of the arts and of sport events. They also are an eco-conscious company, and that’s it. now to be involved in a cause like darfur would require to reinvent themselves as activists. That would have profund image implications. I fail to see how this could benefit to the brand.
two, that would mean that an established company has to change their image strategy because someone is using unauthorized copyrighted material. why should LV accept that?
For the latter reason LV cannot hardly ignore the issue. LV has to fend off each and every attack against their brand. Now that the dispute is public, they just can’t back off.
So that leaves us with 2 options. One, they go to court. That would be a lose/lose situation. they have a 99.9% chance to win the case but then what. or, they could settle that out of court. the artist, especially, has every interest in pursuing that option. everyone involved would gain a little something out of that.
on closing comments, I still think LV’s image is more damaged by its very unvoluntary association with Paris Hilton and the likes, than by this affair.
Discussing this with a friend and remembered some other relevant examples – e.g. Banksy using Disney and Mcdodnalds characters in his graffiti http://www.artificialgallery.co.uk/preview_artwork.php?form_id=4198625300 and here http://bagnewsnotes.typepad.com/bagnews/images/clips/Banksy-jungle-book.jpg
I don’t recall Disney taking any action, which was a good choice.
Just wanted to drop this into the brand hijacking thread.
Glade did not produce this content but it still makes people laugh. Good or bad for the brand? I think no harm, no foul when it comes to this stuff.
Warning: Involves bathroom humor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coYQGPW-Uyw
Isn’t one part of “fair use” parody or satire?
I ask because I suspect in a fair court LV would lose.
I honestly think the artist is wrong here, he should have not used that system to gain attention since LV is not responsible for the problem of genocide. OK, they are not spending money on the genocide problem, but like thousands of other companies that earn a lot of money every year. Of course LV should NOT say this, we have to say it loud for the people to get the point. There must be a limit for this battle against luxury companies, it’s too easy to exploit this.
NOW, what should LV do?. If the story wasn’t that famous, keep silence about it.
All the companies must predict what kind of public relations crisis they can get involved in, and think (before the problem has cropped up) what they should do. Maybe they have to support social responsibility actions in order to be able to SAY in the future that they do it, in case the problem appeared.
Hmm, so if LV was to join the campaign, this “would be a nod to activitists everywhere to brand jack major brands in order to get support “and funding, the cycle will continue”? Would that be such a bad thing? Would it kill corporates such as LV to grow a social conscience, or is CSR just not quite luxe enough for their target market?
A quick act of brushing-under-the-rug will do more damage to the brand image of LV than an act of positively associating themselves as supporters of the fight against misdirected media scrutiny. With the world becoming increasingly smaller, crises such as that faced by Darfur need to be acknowledged before we all end up portrayed as emaciated figures on t-shirts. From a marketing perspective, this has all the makings of a striking campaign. In reaction to counterfeiting, LV constructed shoots and promotions in which their luxury products were displayed against a backdrop of corrugated iron and cardboard, the handbags piled up as if in the back alley of a seedy counterfeiting district. Consumers are savvy enough not to associate LV with the evils of piracy, why should the same not apply here? The CMO should align with luxury brands that target similiar markets or use similiar strategies and together they should embrace a massive campaign that highlights the distorted focus of the media and redirects it onto the crisis in Darfur. As a high fashion brand, LV needs to become aware that social conscience is the new “it” thing,use that to its advantage and maybe do some good in the process. Nadia Piesner should garb her next Darfur victim in a fetching Burberry scarf.
” Option 2: … This too has it™s downsides, the brand will be brought into the human rights spotlight, and if they have any dirt in this arena (perhaps oversees manufacturing) they™ll be in turn scrutinized. ”
– and that is bad… why, exactly? C’mon, if they have that kind of dirt they _should_ be scrutinized. Of course. Naturally. That goes without saying.
A brother and sister who operated a retail store on the Santee Alley bargain strip in the Fashion District of Downtown say they were falsely accused of dealing in counterfeit merchandise and forced out of business by malicious prosecution pressed by representative of the Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior fashion labels.
George and Marijeanne Antounian recently filed a lawsuit against the two Paris, France-based
luxury brand giants and their attorneys. The Antounians claim that a prior suit that the companies filed against them was itself unlawful.
A federal court eventally dismissed the lawsuit against the Antounians and awarded them approximately $70,000 in lawyer™s fees. That covered about half of what they spent on legal representation in fighting the case, according to a lawyer representing them in their suit against the luxury brands.
The Antounians are seeking unspecified damages from the companies in a malicious prosecution suit alleging that representatives of Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior, and their respective lawyers, knew that allegations of copyright and trademark infringement against them were not true but nevertheless continued with the litigation.
The cost of the defending against the charges eventually forced the Antounian™s to close their Bijou Palace shop on the 1100 block of Santee Alley, according to the couple, who claim they were also forced to liquidate their inventory, a process that typically involves selling off merchandise at very low prices.
The Antounian™s malicious prosecution lawsuit claims that representatives of the two giant luxury labels hired a private investigation company called Investigative Consultants in 2005 to determine whether stores on Santee Alley were selling counterfeit Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior wallets, purses, and other goods. An investigation of nearly two years led to the firm to wrongfully conclude that the Antounians had sold fake Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior products, according to the lawsuit. The Antounians claim that a video used in the investigation showed such counterfeit transactions occurring at adjacent stores and on the pathway of Santee Alley itself, but not at Bijou Palace.
The Antounians™ store sold only costume jewelry and was not in the business of selling purses and wallets, said Sean Macias, managing partner of Macias Counsel, Inc. in Glendale, and the lead attorney representing the Antounians.
William Salle, co-counsel for the Antounians, said that a member of the investigation team, Arianna Ortiz, admitted she provided false testimony in identifying Bijou Palace as one of the stores selling knockoff products.
Ortiz alerted Kris Buckner, president of Investigative Consultants, and lead counsel Janine Garguilo for Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior, of the errors in the investigation reports months before trial, but legal action still proceeded against the Antounians, according to Salle.
The Antouians lawsuit also alleges that during a trial on accusations against them, in July 2007, Buckner testified that he never saw handbags, wallets, or sunglasses”or any Louis Vuitton or Christian Dior items”for sale at Bijou Palace.
These were the same items that the Antounians and Bijou Palace were to have allegedly sold, said Salle.
Macias said that efforts to combat counterfeiting of merchandise are understandable, but contended that his clients were wrongly caught up in the efforts.
Maybe they wanted to send a message to would-be counterfeiters that they mean business, Macias said. Instead, Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior succeeded only in destroying an innocent small business.
Representatives of Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior could not be reached for comment, as of presstime
(Antounians v. Louis Vuitton et al, Los Angeles County Superior Court, Case No. BC396340).
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Today, an article was published regading the fact that a Dutch court has sentenced Nadia tp pay 200000 euros to LV. And they still want more.