–Susan Perera, Attorney

On multiple occasions DuetsBloggers have discussed the risk of verb-ing your brand. While I won’t go into the legal and branding concerns which have been discussed at length, I do find it interesting how frequently these brand verb uses show up in current advertising. Clearly the marketing types aren’t cringing at the use of brands as verbs the way trademark attorneys are.

Some of the recent examples we have discussed include:

“This is how you SONIC”

“When you ORBITZ, you know.”

“The more you know, the more you Kohl’s.”

In addition, this morning I just saw a local version of this Kia commercial which appears to be taking a branding lesson from Culvers:

 

So do brand owners think trademark attorneys are overly concerned about the risks of brand verb-ing?  “Get Kia’fied” makes a catchy jingle.  Does the value of this marketing decision outweigh the trademark concerns?