FIFA Demands Airline Drop Ad That Didn't Mention FIFA At All

from the unofficial-sponsor-of-you-know-what dept

Mon, Mar 22nd 2010 1:10pm — Mike Masnick

Earlier this year, we wrote about how the Olympics, notorious for trying to control everything associated with the Olympics to block anyone from doing any marketing around the games if they haven't paid up, got upset at company selling a t-shirt that read:

"Cool Sporting Event That Takes Place in British Columbia Between 2009 and 2011 Edition."

Now it looks like something similar has happened with the World Cup and the South African airline, Kulula. Kulula, if you don't know, is somewhat famous for its sense of humor. In particular, I really like the way the company recently redesigned one of its airplanes as "Flying 101":

Along those lines, the airlines decided to make a joke of the limits that FIFA struck on sponsors of the World Cup and put out an advertisement calling itself the:

"Unofficial National Carrier of the You-Know-What."

And, along with that it included images of stadiums, national flages and vuvuzelas (a type of horn regularly blown at football matches in South Africa). FIFA apparently sent a threat letter demanding Kulula pull the ad, calling it "ambush marketing." Apparently, FIFA has no sense of humor. After people got annoyed, FIFA put out a silly statement saying that it never said the airline couldn't use certain words or symbols -- but it just couldn't use them all in combination.

Of course, you have to imagine that all the additional attention to Kulula thanks to this "controversy" doesn't bother the airline one bit...

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Filed Under: ads, trademark, world cup
Companies: fifa, kulula

24 Comments

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Ima Fish (profile), 22 Mar 2010 @ 1:13pm

I don't know what's funnier, the plane or the advertising copy. I love this company.
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Freedom, 22 Mar 2010 @ 1:18pm

V8/Duh Moment...
Man, I struggled for months trying to figure out what I was going to paint my plane and finally decided on a nice but boring paint scheme. This one would have been perfect and 100% unique in the GA world. Darn it!!!

Freedom
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Headbhang, 22 Mar 2010 @ 2:06pm

Well done Kulula
Well done for sticking it up to the greedy bastards. :D
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Rabbit80, 22 Mar 2010 @ 2:18pm

Love the plane, but WTF is "ambush marketing"? Is there a law against it?
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- crade (profile), 22 Mar 2010 @ 2:39pm
  
  Re:
  Ambush marketting is running ads referencing an event when you aren't the sponsor. Some places have laws against it.
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The Mighty Buzzard, 22 Mar 2010 @ 2:46pm

Best bit of Streisand Effect judo I've seen in a while.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Mar 2010 @ 2:53pm

Kulula needs to contact the Louisiana Attorney Generals office for information on how to smack-down a sports league. The NFL backed down real fast when the AT and one of the states senators got after them about so called Saints' trademarks.
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The Evil IP Attorney, 22 Mar 2010 @ 2:57pm

Here's what we do-
First, we fully commercialize culture by removing the Public Domain.

Next, we need to make sure people are paid for every use of ideas in a cultural setting. You wanna talk about Bob's Movie? You better pay Bob for talking about his movie first. But you can only do so through me. Later, when mind reading and brain control finally becomes legalized, you will have to pay me for thinking about my imaginary property.

I charge $1K an hour for you to think about my imaginary property.

Can you say win-win?
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mjb5406 (profile), 22 Mar 2010 @ 3:35pm

No Attribution?
Oh, Mike, Mike, Mike...

I've read Techdirt enough to know you bristle at articles posted that do not contain attribution, and (at least most of the time) you mention who reported the story... why not this time? I sent in on Sunday, and was thrilled to see that you picked it up... but no mention of who you got the story from. Sigh. Guess I can't get my 15 seconds of fame after all!
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- Mike Masnick (profile), 22 Mar 2010 @ 3:55pm
  
  Re: No Attribution?
  I've read Techdirt enough to know you bristle at articles posted that do not contain attribution, and (at least most of the time) you mention who reported the story... why not this time? I sent in on Sunday, and was thrilled to see that you picked it up... but no mention of who you got the story from. Sigh. Guess I can't get my 15 seconds of fame after all!
  
  I wrote this post up on Friday after seeing it then, but didn't post it until today. Your submission came in after the post was already written...
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  - mjb5406 (profile), 22 Mar 2010 @ 5:54pm
    
    Re: Re: No Attribution?
    That's OK, Mike... my wife is from South Africa, so I felt it my duty to report on this ridiculous move by FIFA.
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mjb5406 (profile), 22 Mar 2010 @ 3:41pm

So, OK...
You got it from the BBC... but I DID send it in, and MY source was from a South African news source, not one of the Colonialists!@ :-)
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NAMELESS.ONE, 22 Mar 2010 @ 4:40pm

So mister terrorist now has targets?
HAHA
bad thoughts to day after the evil anonymous crap
LOL
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Mar 2010 @ 5:54pm

And the next addition to the planes paint job.
F.I.F.A - fricken ignorant flaming a##holes..
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Daemon_ZOGG (profile), 22 Mar 2010 @ 8:39pm

Kulula Airlines...
The plane's paint-job is AWESOME! I wanna paint my car in the same fashion! "Driver, Front Passenger, Engine,
Fuel Tank, Right Front Tire, Etc". Heh-heh-haaah. ;))

Cheers
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- Liquid (profile), 23 Mar 2010 @ 4:32am
  
  Re: Kulula Airlines...
  LMAO I was about to say the same thing. Also we should have Drivers ED cars painted in the same fashion as well.
  
  Genius.
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Rabbit80, 23 Mar 2010 @ 8:46am

Kululu's response (Printed advert)
http://www.worldcupblog.org/world-cup-2010/kulula-vs-fifa-round-two-not-next-year-not-last-year-but- somewhere-in-between.html
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holger, 24 Mar 2010 @ 9:32pm

another example from Germany
Couple of years ago German Telekom tried t own the letter "T" and forbade anyone else to use it. One of my clients actually had to change their company logo although they used the T before German Telekom. I wonder what Kermit would say.
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Michael Lockyear, 25 Mar 2010 @ 8:22am

I enjoyed their twitter response, "oh dear letter from FIFA's lawyers says we broke their trademark of the use of "South Africa" and think our non-WC ad was about soccer..." http://twitter.com/kulula/status/10357793290
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yuregininsesi, 24 Jun 2010 @ 4:12pm

Kulula needs to contact the Louisiana Attorney Generals office for information on how to smack-down a sports league. The NFL backed down real fast when the AT and one of the states senators got after them about so called Saints' trademarks.
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Barry M, 2 Jul 2010 @ 3:56am

Fifa
Here in South Africa, as the quarter finals of the 2010 WC kick off, we South Africans are completely and utterly gatvol (cheesed off) with Fifa. Their arrogance knows no bounds. They see shadows everywhere and it is always called ambush marketing. They are past masters at drawing attention to these so called ambush brands thereby giving those competitor brands unprecedented mileage. And then there is Septic Bladders refusal to introduce video technology. The standard of refereeing has been nothing short of putrid. Never before have I seen anything quite so dismal. I for one can’t wait till Fifa pack their collective bags and leave these shores!
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pariuri online, 8 Nov 2010 @ 4:40am

Greetings I recently finished reading through your blog and I'm very impressed. I do have a couple questions for you personally however. Do you think you're thinking about doing a follow-up posting about this? Will you be going to keep bringing up-to-date as well?
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gps expert reviews, 20 Dec 2010 @ 3:21am

Comment
You have a point anyway. Sad to know that FIFA put out a silly statement saying that it never said the airline couldn't use certain words or symbol. gps expert reviews
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Steve, 22 Jan 2016 @ 4:37am

FIFA
Probably didn't offer an official from FIFA a big enough bribe, that's all....
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