Bubbles Fly at Unilever

I wasn’t going to do a blog post tonight but then caught wind of this little story. Unilever, the massive corporation who own Dove, Vaseline and Ponds amongst many, many other household name brands, have had their knuckles rapped by a court in the Hague for using the name ‘Champagne’ on a shampoo brand in the Netherlands. Andrelon ‘Champagne’ was produced to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Andrelon brand, but now all 340,000 bottles have to be scrapped – any publicity or sales will garner Unilver EU5000 in forfeit per day! Okay, so I say sack the lawyer that ever thought this would be okay in the first place. Even I knew that the word ‘Champagne’ is one of the most tightly protected names in the world and can only be used on products that originate from the Champagne region of France. And I’m not a multi-national coporate lawyer. You can probably just google ‘Champagne’ and discover that the name is strictly regulated. How it ever came into production in the first place is a mystery, as is why funds were allocated to defend the case. Bizarre.

NB: Info in parts from Cosmetics International Magazine, my bible!

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Jane Cunningham

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10 responses to “Bubbles Fly at Unilever”

  1. Claire

    That’s a pretty poor show from the people who are paid by Unilever to sort these kinds of things out before it gets to this stage.

    God knows how it got this far without at least one person having a lightbulb moment.

    Reply
  2. LiAnn – Sparklecrack Central

    They’re an American-based corporation. They probably thought that any consumable product named or labelled as “Champagne” would get slammed, but not anything that was not a food item. There are lots of shades of this and that sold as “Champagne”-whatever, and as far as I know the shade names aren’t slammed. US trademark law is based in avoiding intentional consumer confusion, but figures that consumers will know a food-or-beverage item from a household appliance. Hence two food products cannot be called the same name, but a food product and a household appliance can because – in theory – a consumer would not confuse Sham-Wow cleaning cloths with Sham-Wow orca chow.

    /cynicism mode engaged and turned up to 11
    Either that, or they just figured: screw it, we’ll do it, if they choose to make a case out of it we’ll get some publicity anyway and they probably won’t make a deal out of it.

    My money’s on that last. But then again, we’ve just come through an election where hatred and divisiveness seemed to be winning, and I’m just kind of disgusted and tired.

    Reply
  3. Mora

    marketing fail!

    that this happens to such a big corporation…

    Reply
  4. GreatSheElephant

    It’s particularly bad on Unilever’s part given that Yves Saint Laurent got hammered for exactly the same thing – calling a perfume Champagne. They were forced to withdraw it and rename it (it’s Yvresse). Honestly, I really can’t believe they’d be so stupid – the YSL case was exceptionally high profile.

    Reply
  5. Grant

    A few fragrance houses have been caught out like this. Caron’s Royal Bain de Champagne is one. Another that comes to mind is YSL’s Yvresse which was originally called Champagne.

    Lastly @LiAnn – Unilever are an Anglo-Dutch company, rather than American.

    Reply
  6. Olivia

    Good thing they didn’t name it Metallica either. Boy, the band would be just as angry.

    Reply
  7. Dutchess Roz

    Haha big marketing fail.
    Im in the Netherlands at the moment and Andrelon is doing a huge push with their 70th anniversary and have seen the Champagne bottles hehe
    xoxo

    Reply
  8. Amy

    LiAnn makes a good point–if its a health & beauty product I’m not sure why that’s a harm. I’m not a big fan of anyone owning words for all purposes, there are a few eyeshadows named “Champagne” (Smashbox sold “Smashing Champagne,” I think there’s a Revlon?). Yes, “Champagne” is regulated in wines and spirits–and I’m sure every beverage maker would steer clear. I say give the rest of the world some space?

    Reply
  9. Goose Girl

    Just look up “Champagne (disambiguation) on Wikipedia to see all the possible meanings it has. Even the locations it relates to!

    I don’t blame Unilever for trying to defend itself.

    If it was a drink fair enough but I thought the Treaty of Madrid was only related to sparkling wine beverages.

    Madness!

    Reply
  10. Keverne Eason Mapp

    well you’ve all missed the real point here!
    I bet you my tooth brush that they knew exactly what they were doing,exactly the reaction they’d get,and finally exactly how many people would talk about it all over the world.
    They’ll peal off the name ‘Champagne’ then stick on another,but you’ll all notice because it’s ‘THEM’ that dared call their shampoo ‘Champagne’- oooh dear!

    C’mon please,if I had a medeocre product,how best to boost sales than tempt the devil,even with 340,000 bottles returned,that’s 340,000 hits!

    I’m sure they’ll come up with a funny commercial to go with the whole scam.

    It makes me chuckle!

    Reply

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