The problem of having/being a copycat

I was reading the Sunday Times today and came upon an article about how Starbucks’ case against the similarity of its logo with that of Taiwanese coffee chain Ecoffee was recently rejected because of the latter’s so-called distinctive features.

This is what I found on the Tai E International Patent Law & Office website:

Two logos respectively being “ECOFFEE & Design壹咖啡” and “STARBUCKS COFFEE and Design”, both comprising the white word “COFFEE” on a green circumference framing a white picture on a brown background were held to be distinctive by the Taipei High Administrative Court on December 13, 2007; because the word coffee is illustrative of the designated goods and the circular device has become a weak mark.

And this:

Therefore, the two trademarks “STARBUCKS COFFEE and Design” and “ECOFFEE & Design壹咖啡” should be deemed distinguishable since consumers applying a normal level of attention would not be confused.

I agree that the Ecoffee logo, while being rather similar to the Starbucks one, still has enough differences to warrant it to not be exactly like Starbucks - yes, as a customer I can tell the difference between the two.

However, what struck me was this quote from Mr Steven Soo, the Singaporean franchiser of Ecoffee:

“Ecoffee is like a Chinese Starbucks and I think there is a market for it here.”

The issue for me is not one of fooling your customers (I highly doubt that any regular Starbucks coffee lover would mistake one for the other), but one of how Ecoffee is marketing itself.

Why would any business want to market themselves as a local version of insert-highly-distinctive-much-loved-by-consumers-brand-here, when they can create a unique personality for themselves that automatically differentiates themselves from their competitors?

It’s like being a lesser-known relative of a famous person (Brad Pitt’s half-brother, Bill Gates’ Mexican cousin, etc). Why would you ever want to settle for second best?

Coincidentally, Michael Netzley from CommunicateAsia has also commented on this issue. He asks a very important question: Instead of trying to defend yourself from being labeled a copycat, why not just focus on differentiation and creating a brand that you can be proud of?

Today’s newspaper also featured a similar article ($50 iPod? Sounds too good to be real) on a S$50 MP3 player that looks convincingly similar to the iPod nano. In the article, one owner of the copycat nano says this:

“Honestly, not many people can tell the difference between the real and fake players. So I feel that I have made a smart decision to invest in a fake iPod.”

This leads me to several questions:

What motivates people to buy copycats? Is it a symbol of status that people desire but may not be able to afford? i.e. It makes me want to buy a Prada-lookalike bag because I want to be viewed as fashion-forward and trendy by my peers.

Also, the abovementioned user sees her purchase as an investment, meaning that she will get returns from it presumably via fooling people into believing that she has the real thing.

What if more consumers decide that buying an iPod lookalike at a fraction of the price is enough to buy into the brand experience, since most other people won’t be able to tell the difference (unless they start playing with the interface)? What does this mean for the original company?

I don’t know if these are important questions, but they popped in my head, so I just thought that I’d share them with you. Feel free to share your own views too.

Doing away with corpspeak/ cut out the BS (updated)

Found this site from Lee Hopkins’ blog, Better Communication Results
which features the extremely refreshing and brilliant way one company seeks to engage their customers via telling the whole truth and nothing but.

Here’s an excerpt from their website:

Cool job titles make us sound smarter and more clever.

Welcome to the world’s most dynamic eBusiness marketing, design and consulting agency. We provide distinct clients with groundbreaking business strategies and cutting-edge designs to aggressively and creatively compete in a changing economy.

Our consulting ideas will entice and excite you. Our professional design solutions will give you the confidence to succeed. And our web site will make you think we know what we’re doing.

And now our cutting edge consulting and design solutions include New Web 2.0 Technology™. That means we’re not only better than everyone else, but smarter too.

Our name will confuse you, but, you have to admit, the logo design is pretty cool. That’s because it was designed with New Web 2.0 Technology™ and the New Web 2.0 Shiny Table-Top Thing™. And we’re good at turning regular words into “eWords,” such as “eBusiness” or “eSexual harassment.”

Our office is really modern and we’ve got nice computers and stuff. If you ever saw it, you’d say “Wow, cool office. These guys are legit.”

And this:

We have really smart people who are always thinking up totally cool shit. We have a meeting room with a big, round, expensive table. When you hire us for marketing and consulting projects, we spend lots of time sitting around the table having meetings.

Our female staff members are all hot, so, even if there’s nothing to meet about, we’ll sit and flirt with them, and charge you for the time. When one of our new-age marketing gurus or design experts or consultants has an idea, the rest of us look at him or her with serious expressions and write stuff down on paper.

We also have one of those dry-erase boards on the wall, and we take turns making flow-charts and brain-storming and talking about “injecting creativity into market positioning,” and cool stuff like that.

How’s that for honesty! I love the wit! This puts them in a class of their own against companies still doing things the old way (ie. treating customers like chumps by talking at them, as opposed to talking to them).

Edit: After thinking more about the topic, I think that huhcorp gets it right because more than just trying to talk to their customers, they’re nudging their customers in the ribs, sharing a joke based on mutual understanding. Having a sense of humour makes them more human too.

Another company that does not take itself so seriously is Puma (found on Seth Godin’s blog. Thanks Seth!) Also note the sneaky aside on research findings. Love it!

yes, I am a book nerd

Came across this blog post at Dan Santow’s blog Word Wise, where he talks about how reading can help unlock the meaning of life. I totally agree with him.

I feel that a truly great book makes you think even greater thoughts about life, which is why I like to write down quotes that I find thought-provoking. And I almost always feel sad when a book ends, because while reading I find that I get very attached to the characters.

I also like what he says about trying something new. If you’re always going for fiction, try a little non-fiction and vice versa.

As a former Literature student (although I will always be one at heart), I read a great many literature classics (Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath). Some were hard to get into, but I always found the effort rewarding at the end, and I found them to be extremely relevant in spite of their publishing dates.

Then I moved on to more humorous books (David Sedaris’ Me Talk Pretty One Day and Dress Your Family in Corduroy & Denim, Marc Acito’s How I Paid My Way Through College, Douglas Adam’s The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) which made many a bus journey that much easier to bear.

In more recent times, I’ve had a wave of tragic fiction books (Ian McEwan’s Atonement, Khaled Hosseini’s Kite Runner, Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time-Traveler’s Wife, Andre Dubus III’s House of Sand and Fog) whose brilliance I think will stand the test of time.

Now I’m moving more towards science-fiction and fantasy (Terry Pratchett’s Sourcery) and am currently reading Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere (and really liking it). Reading these books really shine light on so many issues worth thinking about, which I had never thought about before.

Other new genres that I have yet to try (but will when I have the time):

Marketing books. High on my list are those by Seth Godin, a man with the simplest, yet most profound ideas about marketing and life.

Graphic Novels. I read The Wake (final collection of issues in the The Sandman series) by Neil Gaiman in the library and surprisingly liked it. Up till that point I had avoided graphic novels for the longest time.

Economics books. Steven Levitt & Stephen J Dubner’s Freakonomics (everyone keeps raving about it) and Tim Harford’s The Underground Economist, amongst others.

I really wish I had all the time in the world to read all the books I want to read.

So that’s my book journey. What’s yours? What books are you reading now?

Also, do look out for my post on Bookcheating.

[Image of Morpheus from The Sandman taken from http://distraction.february-rains.net/wps/dreamwp1_1024.jpg]