Campbell Soup Cans What Candidate Mike Campbell Thought Was an M’m! M’m! Good Idea

By: DEAN R. KARAU

December 2007

Last month, Mike Campbell, a candidate for city council in Burlington, Iowa, decided to take advantage of his famous last name, playing off the Campbell Soup Company’s trademarks:

It seemed like a clever idea, until Campbell (the company) sent a cease and desist letter to Campbell (the candidate), putting him in the soup.

“We cannot permit the unauthorized use of our valuable trademarks and because the public could be misled into believing that Campbell is in some way associated with or supports your candidacy,”

said intellectual property counsel for Campbell (the company).

Campbell (the candidate), properly chastised, backed down:

“The only thing I really wanted to do was to have a clever way for people to remember that Mike Campbell was running for re-election to city council. How crazy that it got all this attention!  It even made the state-by-state roundup in the USA Today.

“I have removed the Campbell Co. marks from my website, and Campbell Co. says I don’t have to concern myself with retrieving campaign buttons already distributed. And they wished me luck in my political endeavors."

Was Campbell’s (the candidate) use of Campbell’s (the company) mark a parody? Probably not. While parody is a form of artistic expression covered by the First Amendment, use of a trademark must poke fun at the product or company symbolized by the mark. For instance, when Nike sued the maker of the shirt on the right, an appellate court said,

[w]hen businesses seek the national spotlight, part of the territory includes accepting a certain amount of ridicule. The First Amendment, which protects individuals from laws infringing free expression, allows such ridicule in the form of parody.”

In this case, however, Campbell (the candidate) was not making a playful comment on Campbell (the company) but was using the trademark to gain visibility for his campaign. Even so, Campbell (the candidate) was probably not making use of Campbell’s (the company) mark in a trademark sense. And even if it was a trademark use, it is unlikely that anyone mistakenly asked Campbell (the candidate) for a can of soup, or that anyone sent Campbell (the company) a campaign donation. Nevertheless, that didn’t stop the Campbell (the company) from going after the perceived fly in its soup.

While a trademark owner needs to protect the goodwill associated with its mark, and arguably more so when it’s a famous mark, hyper-sensitivity can often be counter-productive. Companies in some cases need to develop thicker skins, so that attempts to protect goodwill do not, in fact, generate ill-will. It’s sometimes a tough call, but  perhaps Campbell (the company) should have accepted the free advertising it received in Burlington, Iowa, and left Campbell (the candidate) alone. After all, to paraphrase an old soup joke,

Q: How can you tell the difference between a great big soup company and a small town political candidate?

A: Read the labels.