We have long been told that the most successful consumer brands are those that get their consumers to do a lot of their marketing for them. Thus, Harley-Davidson has fans who sport the official H-D gear, get the company logo tattooed on their arms, and name their children Harley and Davidson.
Closer to home, half the people in Boston are occasional walking billboards for one of the local sports teams. As the possessor of a Red Sox fleece, tee-shirt, pin, earrings, and two caps, I’m one of them. And that doesn’t even count my “Pennant Fever” tee from 1986.
Right now in Boston, I’d say we’re trending about 55% Bruins (it helps to win), 40% Red Sox (it helps to be in season), 3% Patriots, and 2% Celtics. (Sorry Revs.) Although I only have Red Sox “stufff”, I am partial to the Bruins “Keep Calm and Bergeron” tee-shirt (after B’s star Patrice Bergeron).
Other sorts of goods and services would be lucky to inspire such brand loyalty – imagine someone with, say, a Verizon or Bank of America tattoo – yet marketers can always hope that someone will do some sort of fan-appreciation deal-io for their brand.
Thus, one might have imagined, the folks at Ferrero would have been delighted that an American had put her heart and soul into celebrating an annual World Nutella Day – Nutella being a Ferrero product – which Sara Rosso has done faithfully since February of 2007.
The purpose of the day is to:
“celebrate Italy’s edible treasure with online and offline tributes” and to share recipes. It caught on—the Facebook page for World Nutella Day now has nearly 40,000 likes. (Source: Business Week.)
While I will admit that I never turn down the offer of one of those Ferrero Rocher foil-wrapped chocolate hazelnut sins – yummy – I am not a fan of Nutella, and am unlikely to join the nearly 40,000 likes celebrating World Nutella Day.
I’m not quite sure why I don’t really like Nutella, since I am pretty much a chocoholic. Maybe I’d like it better by the spoonful, rather than on bread, where to me it doesn’t quite belong. (I will have to try it on ice cream: that might do the trick for me.)
Still, I know that there are fans out there – I am related to a few of them – and I am happy that the Nutellans of the world have their very own day.
Anyway, from a marketing perspective, was a bit shocked that Ferrero had tried to put the kibosh on it.
“They asked me to take down the site because they consider it to be an unauthorized use of their intellectual property and trademarks—the Nutella logo and brand,” Rosso wrote in an e-mail [sent to Business Week].
Now, I understand that a company would want to protect its brand from misuse, malfeasance, and baddies.
Mountain Dew would certainly not be happy if the KKK declared it the official soft drink of white supremacists, and started sporting the Dew logo on their robes and hoods .
And no brand would want to see someone else using their logos, etc., for their own profit. Thus, major league sports, and Disney, and everyone else out there with images 
that someone else might be interested in exploiting, are eternally vigilant to make sure that no one’s making a dime off of them. (That 1986 “Pennant Fever” tee-shirt – which, even though it’s a 50-50 cotton-poly blend, has the wonderfully retro smiling Red Sox on it - was not officially blessed by Major League Baseball. Neither, I suspect, are those “Keep Calm and Bergeron” numbers I have my eye on.)
And yet it seems pretty crazy – mean-spirited and just plain wrong-headed - to clamp down on someone who’s just trying to promote your product, does it not? (And am I the only one who thinks it’s a hoot to think of anything to do with Nutella, other than maybe the recipe, as being “intellectual property.”)
Still, Ferrero would not be the only group to be protective of its brands. Last year, the U.S. Olympic Committee sent a cease-and-desist letter to the online knitting group Ravelry about its marathon knit-off called the Ravelympics.
Nutella? Ravelry? Yes indeed-y, I can see a bunch of knitters getting confused with lugers and sprinters. Seriously, folks… What is up with these over-zealous brand polizei?
Not having worked in consumer goods, I’m happy that I never had to put up with this sort of nonsense.
I did work for a company that had a product called “ATF” (Automated Test Facility), that had a component called the ATF Agent. Fortunately, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms never came after us for violating their brand standards. (This product was around during the Waco hoo-hah, so at trade shows we’d occasionally attract quasi-lunatics who thought we had something to do with the take down of David Koresh et al., and would start to yell at us. I remember one fellow ranting on about the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Actually, talking with him was more interesting than talking with some of the prospects who actually wanted to know something about how ATF worked.)
Not surprisingly, Ferrero – after dealing with a few days of w.t.f. social media uproar – has backtracked. On Tuesday, the announced that it would cease and desist asking World Nutella Day to cease and desist.
“The case arose from a routine brand defense procedure that was activated as a result of some misuse of the Nutella brand on the fan page. Ferrero is pleased to announce that today, after contacting Sara Rosso and finding together the appropriate solutions, it immediately stopped the previous action,” the company stated.
Now, wouldn’t you think that they would have thought of that before they started sabre rattling in Sara Rosso’s direction? Unless, of course, there’s some scheming marketing mastermind behind the scenes who figured out that, however bad it made Ferrero look, this brouhaha would be good publicity for Nutella…
Nah…. This “routine brand defense procedure” was just dumb, dumb, dumb. Haven’t they read Marketing 101?
If someone’s willing to do your marketing for you, just let them.
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