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Tarnishment by association: a new twist

By Johanna Gibson, David Pearce, Jeremy Phillips and Ilanah Simon.

It is well known that fashion labels send celebrities free samples of their wares in the hope that the celebrity will wear the piece in public, be photographed in the process and hopefully inspire others to follow.

But according to this article, this time it's different: Snooki - that's a woman's name, apparently - is a character from MTV's "reality" show Jersey Shore. She is about as trashy as anyone can be. But she gets a lot of media attention (for the next 15 minutes or so at least). So designer labels send her the latest "must have" purses. But, and that's the punchline: those of their competitors... association with Snooki is obviously considered seriously detrimental to your brand image.

Ever the lawyer, this Kat wonders: is this actionable (leaving questions of proof aside)? The intention is clearly tarnishment of the competitor's trade mark, but it doesn't seem to fit into any well-established categories of tarnishment.

Full post as published by IPKat on August 23, 2010 (boomark / email).