Recovering from a nasty bout of walking pneumonia over the last couple of days, I probably spent more time (at least, mindless time) in front of the television than the last several months combined.
One thing that caught my eye during a brief and surprisingly mindful moment while I suffered was another brand to recently jump on the brandverb bandwagon, namely, Sonic America’s Drive-In restaurant chain.
Sonic is sporting this new tagline: "This is how you SONIC".
The tagline also appropriately sports an "SM" notice (to communicate trademark, actually, service mark status) and it is also appropriately supported by a federal service mark application, filed back in April, and published for opposition just days ago.
Nicely played, SONIC marketing and legal teams.
For more on the subject of trademark verbing and the risk of genericide, consider these prior posts:
- Just Verb It? A Legal Perspective on Using Brands As Verbs: Part I
- Just Verb It? Part II: A Legal Perspective on Using Brands As Verbs
- Just Verb It? Part III: Testing the "Slippery Slope" of Using Brands as Verbs
- Managing The Legal Risk of "Verbing Up" Brands and Trademarks
- How Realistic is the Risk of Trademark Genericide?
I’m not worried about genericide with this SONIC brandverbing, are you?