Diageo, the Tanqueray brand owner is currently running billboard ads in the Twin Cities as part of its “Tonight We Tanqueray” ad campaign. A couple of years back when the campaign first was announced, Diageo explained it this way:

“One of the world’s most awarded gins, Tanqueray London Dry has just launched a substantial new global campaign ‘Tonight we Tanqueray’, positioning Tanqueray as the drink to set the tone to an evening, inviting consumers to start the night right.”

Did you notice the verbing of the Tanqueray brand and trademark? Nancy Friedman over at Fritinancy did last year. As risky as verbing can be for some brands, as we previously have discussed extensively here, here, here, here, and here, Diageo appears to have gotten this one right, making a number of choices consistent with our earlier checklist for mitigating the risk of genericide and avoiding a complete loss of trademark rights.

Diageo obtained federal registrations for TONIGHT WE TANQUERAY and the stylized version depicted in the ads shown above, two years ago. And, it appears another Tanqueray verbing tagline was federally-registered six years ago for READY TO TANQUERAY? — but unless a Section 8 & 15 Declaration is filed during the currently open grace period, it will die a natural death.

One of the non-legal consequences of using TANQUERAY as a verb in these taglines is that consumers naturally will fill in the blank on what the brand means to them so that they can ascribe meaning to the tagline. I suppose this invitation for engagement could be good or bad, depending on how the brand is perceived. Given the title of this blog post, I have filled in the blank for TANQUERAY to be synonymous with TOAST or CELEBRATE. What does the brand mean to you?

The ads shown above also depict something else we have written extensively about here: non-traditional trademarks. Note the classy and unspoken “look-for advertising” to promote the Tanqueray green/red color trade dress and bottle configuration (both federally-registered decades ago).

Last, for the history buffs out there, note the wonderful archive of product labels that can be obtained from the online records at the USPTO, here the front and back of a nearly century old product label for TANQUERAY gin, showing the USPTO’s mail room stamp from 1917:

Until seeing this specimen I hadn’t appreciated Tanqueray is the surname of the brand’s founder Charles Tanqueray.

It must be a very rare surname as the Diageo marks are the only ones in the entire USPTO database containing the term TANQUERAY. And, none of the registrations rely on Section 2(f) of Lanham Act for purposes of distinctiveness.

Have you ever met someone named Tanqueray?