I Am Allowed to Say "Super Bowl"
But advertisers aren't. Unless they are somehow officially connected to the Super Bowl. Hence, this is just about my favorite week to pay attention to commercials and print ads. I just love all the euphemisms for Super Bowl. "The Big Game" is the most common. ("Stock up on soda and snacks for the Big Game!") "Your football party" is another. How many can you count between now and kickoff?
Labels: advertising, Jack remembers to add labels, Super Bowl
posted by Jack Silbert at
1:47 PM
10 Comments:
Just saw a minimalist online ad from Planters: "Watch our commercial during the football game on Feb. 3rd!"
That's just bizarre. I would have guessed that "fair use" would let anyone use the words Super Bowl as long as they weren't claiming an association with it.
Just googled for some commentary on this but all I found were articles and comments from people saying that they think this is bizarre and looked online for comments on this but couldn't find any. One article points out that the NFL has tried to trademark "Big Game" as well. And that the Patriots have applied for a trademark on "19-0" in case they win the super bowl, while the New York Post has applied for a trademark on "18-1" in case the Giants win.
Then there's this, which looks like a joke but is smack in the middle of a real article (it's also only tangentially related to this topic):
U.S. football fans will not see ads featuring scantily clad vegetarians or a political attack on President Bush during February's Super Bowl after CBS said on Thursday that advocacy advertisements were out of bounds on professional football's biggest day... "We just want to be able to present our jiggly women," said Lisa Lange, spokeswoman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
Just found a good article about the trademark issue from the Washington Post two years ago:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/30/AR2006013001654.html
Good article, but it doesn't talk about whether or not the NFL really has the right to do that, or if they do, why they do.
Just found a blog where someone had posted only the NFL's copyright warning, and was contacted by the NFL telling them to take it down. Don't copy our copyright warning!
The NFL has also aggressively gone after church and other social groups whose members gather to watch the game (qualifies as an unauthorized rebroadcast or some such thing).
sitcoms are always very careful when it comes to using nfl stuff. and singing "happy birthday." someone wrote that song.
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I quietly trademarked the Roman numeral "XLVIII" a while back. I'm counting on it for my retirement.
That "comment deleted" adds an exciting air of intrigue to this thread!
You can sing it in Canada, though! Happy Birthday (full name: "Happy Birthday To You") is protected under copyright law in the U.S. until 2030, but the copyright ran out in Canada in the 80s...
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