Handler, Michael --- "Recoding famous brands in advertising and in entertainment products: case studies on the so-called harms of trade mark dilution" [2017] ELECD 305; in Richardson, Megan; Ricketson, Sam (eds), "Research Handbook on Intellectual Property in Media and Entertainment" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 290

Book Title: Research Handbook on Intellectual Property in Media and Entertainment

Editor(s): Richardson, Megan; Ricketson, Sam

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781784710781

Section: Chapter 11

Section Title: Recoding famous brands in advertising and in entertainment products: case studies on the so-called harms of trade mark dilution

Author(s): Handler, Michael

Number of pages: 27

Abstract/Description:

In most descriptive accounts of what a brand signifies and communicates, the usual starting point is to refer to the position adopted by brand owners and their advocates. Such parties will note that many trade marks, especially famous ones, do much more than operate as identifiers of the commercial origin of goods and services, or as guarantees of the quality of such goods and services. Rather, they will point to the fact that, through significant investment and carefully managed promotional efforts, many mark owners have sought to imbue their marks with particular meanings and attributes in the course of developing ‘brand identities’. More specifically, it is said that by investing vast resources in and maintaining a high level of control over the advertising and marketing of branded goods or services, owners can create and reinforce a cluster of associations around their marks, connecting them in the minds of consumers with a particular set of values, ideals, aspirations and emotions. In this way, brands have enormous symbolic and communicative power: not only are they designed to generate ongoing emotional and economic responses among consumers of the branded goods or services, but they can also operate more widely in social discourse as shorthand signifiers of certain positive values and as cultural reference points. All of this is undeniable.