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INLSA<\/p>\n
Paula and Mike Schmidt, owners of Midlands cooldrink business Frankies, have won a case against Woolworths. The retail chain has been banned from using a slogan and bottle design for a similar soft drink line they say is a copycat of Frankies.<\/p>\n
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A family-run Midlands cool-drink manufacturer scored a \u201csmall guy\u201d victory yesterday with an Advertising Standards Authority of SA ruling that retail giant Woolworths \u201cdeliberately and intentionally\u201d copied its \u201cgood old-fashioned\u201d branding on its vintage sodas. It ordered Woolworth to remove this line. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have won the battle, but not the war,\u201d said Mike Schmidt, CEO of Frankies Olde Soft Drinks Co, who added that he would be meeting Woolworths CEO Ian Moir to \u201cdiscuss many important issues\u201d. <\/p>\n
While he did not elaborate, it was believed there would be discussion around Schmidt\u2019s assertions that the company not only stole its slogan, but that Woolworths\u2019 entire vintage soda line \u2013 with its retro-shaped bottles, striped labelling and some identical flavours \u2013 was a copycat of the range he launched in 2006. <\/p>\n
These issues were not raised in Schmidt\u2019s complaint to the advertising authority, apparently for legally strategic reasons, but, if not resolved, could be the subject of a future court case. <\/p>\n
Victory <\/p>\n
Schmidt, after hearing of the ruling yesterday, said he had challenged Woolworths because he believed his brand was at stake \u201cand we had to do whatever we could to protect it; this is a victory for small businesses\u201d. <\/p>\n
In terms of the ruling, Woolworths must remove all packaging bearing the words \u201cgood old-fashioned\u201d, within three months. The ban on the words also applies to all media, for example any advertising using this pay-off line. <\/p>\n
Woolworths said it was disappointed with the ruling, but would abide by it. \u201cWe will comply within the stipulated time frames,\u201d said Moir. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we maintain that we have not copied the Frankies\u2019s range, it is clear that public sentiment is against us. Customer opinion is much more important to us than the right or wrong of this issue, and the trust of our customers is far more valuable. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe genuinely believed that the phase \u2018good old-fashioned\u2019 was descriptive and could be used across a range of vintage-styled products. Vintage products remain a global trend,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
This was essentially the argument that the company submitted in response to Frankies\u2019s complaint that it was a case of willful copying. <\/p>\n
The advertising authority, in its ruling, said there was hardly any evidence to support Woolworths\u2019 argument that the term \u201cold-fashioned\u201d was widely used in relation to sodas internationally. <\/p>\n
The directorate said that \u2013 while Woolworths had submitted confidential minutes of a presentation meeting with its supplier, Chill Beverages, and a confidential design concept brief it prepared in June last year \u2013 neither of which made mention of Frankies \u2013 these documents did not explain where or how it came up with idea to use the phrase \u201cgood old-fashioned\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is clear, is that on April 15, 2011, Frankies\u2019s attorney wrote to Woolworths\u2019 supplier indicating that it believed the phrase to be its advertising property. In the light of this, the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn\u2026 is that Woolworths deliberately and intentionally copied the phrase from Frankies advertising,\u201d it said.\t8<\/strong>BR <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" INLSA Paula and Mike Schmidt, owners of Midlands cooldrink business Frankies, have won a case against Woolworths. The retail chain has been banned from using a slogan and bottle design for a similar soft drink line they say is a copycat of Frankies. A family-run Midlands cool-drink manufacturer scored a \u201csmall guy\u201d victory yesterday with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-7581","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}