I can call them ‘Legos’ if I want to (and you can’t stop me)
Friday, August 8th, 2008Since the concept of playing with Legos is so near and dear to my heart, I found this FriendFeed thread by Iowa native Chris Pirillo (FriendFeed | blog) to be terribly interesting.
Upon reading this, it is your formal duty to bust anybody who violates this rule in FF threads. It’s not Legos, it’s LEGO. It’s not Lego, it’s LEGO. It’s not LEGOS, it’s LEGO. It’s not LEGOs, it’s LEGO. ALWAYS. </prick>
It’s actually somewhat true. Lego has always asserted that the term “legos” is not proper use of their brand name. Lego is supposed to be an adjective, and should always be capitalized: for example, LEGO toys, LEGO bricks, LEGO minifigs, LEGO universe, etc.
However, this is an archaic and ill-informed manner of operating. Essentially, Lego has attempted to force the control of their brand on consumers. Placing the burden of maintaining their brand presence on the very people that purchase their products is a practice that consumers will almost always reject — or simply ignore completely.
Brand management should always be a corporation’s job, never a consumer’s job. Sure, a smart company will allow the consumer to somehow take part in controlling the message — sometimes even without the consumer realizing they were acting as a marketing pawn. But forcing an arbitrary rule on consumers in order to protect your own brand recognition? That’s just a recipe for rebellion.
The most common way to circumvent this apparent Lego Law™ is to use the term “brick” instead. That’s why the premier Lego community is called Brickshelf and a lot of Lego-related blogs contain the word “brick”, such as the Brothers Brick. But even this is done almost as an act of defiance against Lego for their rule. So in attempting to “protect their brand”, Lego has forced people instead to simply abandon it altogether. Well done, Lego.
If I want to refer to Coca-Cola as “Coke”, there is nothing that the Coca-Cola company can do to avoid this. In fact, historically, they have even encouraged such an association through their advertising. Instead of pushing a backwards-thinking concept on their consumer base, Lego should instead be embracing the “legos” concept and encouraging people to associate the term “legos” with their products. Continuing to force this brand recognition practice on their consumer base doesn’t necessarily hurt their fan loyalty in any way. It’s not like there’s a better alternative competing lego-style product available anywhere (there really isn’t, I’ve looked – MEGA BLOKS hurt my brain). But it does more to hurt their overall brand than I think they will ever realize.
In the first place, Chris Pirillo doesn’t deserve Ponzi.
If the folks at Lego want you to protect their trademark by being a jerk, then they ought to be decent enough to PAY you to protect their trademark for them by being a jerk. It’s a pain in the butt, being a jerk, and although it comes easy to some people (names not to be mentioned here, unless I get paid), it’s an artform that ought to be monetized.
However, you commented that “If I want to refer to Coca-Cola as “Coke”, there is nothing that the Coca-Cola company can do to avoid this.” The folks at Coca-Cola wouldn’t want you to avoid this. They have a number of trademarks on “Coke”. (You need a separate trademark on each category. A trademark on the beverage would not protect them from someone producing Coke clothes, so they have both of those trademarks. If you want to start a personal computer company called ‘Coke Computers’, it appears that you could get your own trademark on that.
But this discussion sorta reminds me of the teacher who asked the farmer why some cattle didn’t have horns. Some breeds of cattle, he informed her, don’t grow horns. Some cattle don’t grow horns because they are cows rather than bulls. Those cattle, he said, pointing to them, don’t have horns because they’re horses.
Have fun. If you want to call them legos, go ahead. Maybe Ponzi will realize he’s a jerk and come show her appreciation. Me, I’m married, perhaps excessively so.
I’m all for sticking it to the man and all that, but the word ‘Legos’ makes my skin crawl. I thought that’s what all Americans called LEGO.
…but I forgive you
I’ve always called them “Legos,” but then again I call all soft drinks “cokes.”
An interesting list of genericized trademarks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericized_trademarks
Well if they’re going to get all huffy puffy about it, then just stop calling them laygoes at all! simply call them “Snaps” or something random like that. That will teach them! Freedom and speech says i can do what I want! Whateva!