Recently, a small bakery in Salt Lake City called\u00a0My Dough Girl\u00a0received a legal threat from General Mills.\u00a0 What was the threat exactly?\u00a0 As\u00a0reported by KSL.com:<\/p>\n
When the owner picked the name \u201cMy Dough Girl,\u201d she says she went through the proper procedure \u2014 including checking on any copyright infringement.<\/p>\n
Now that the business has grown in popularity, a big corporation is threatening to take her to court.<\/p>\n
The owner of My Dough Girl received a legal \u201ccease and desist\u201d order from Pillsbury in May, stating she had to change her business name or face a lawsuit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And obviously to us, but not so obvious to General Mills, the internet has turned against Pillsbury.\u00a0 Check out this Facebook page\u00a0keeping track\u00a0of the situation created by irate fans of Dough Girl for just the tip of the iceberg:<\/p>\n
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I\u2019ll be honest, I didn\u2019t see the connection between Pillsbury and this shop (or had even heard of this shop before).\u00a0 But apparently the General Mills legal team has nothing better to do than torture small business owners.\u00a0 Torture, in that according to the same story it will cost the owner an estimated $50,000 to go through a re-naming\/re-branding of the company.<\/p>\n
To me it seems like a lack of common sense on General Mills part, self-invoking of negativity for the brand from consumers plus a real threat of a groundswell against them.<\/p>\n
As with any groundswell, users are doing the work of taking the ethically correct side of this battle.\u00a0 One blogger\u00a0drew up a great letter\u00a0to General Mills, and in it included the following illustration to show the scale of the two companies and some comparisons of the brand:<\/p>\n
General Mills vs. My Dough Girl Size<\/strong><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Would you really confuse these two brands?<\/strong><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
Another story\u00a0in Salt Lake City Weekly\u00a0noted the fact that General Mills asked Dough Girl to remain silent about the situation, and even kill the Facebook page (which she didn\u2019t even create):<\/p>\n
Corporate counsel for General Mills has asked Cromar to not talk to the media about the squabble and to kill the Facebook page, which Cromar says is a \u201cguerrilla uprising\u201d of her supporters that she did not start and does not control.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So on top of threatening a small business which poses no harm to General Mills or bears any resemblance to the Pillsbury Dough Boy, the corporate giant is attempting to silence any opposition.\u00a0 Except that\u2019s not how things work anymore.\u00a0 These actions merely invoke the\u00a0Streisand Effect\u00a0(which, if you\u2019re reading this, proves just how real it is).<\/p>\n
Techdirt also covered the story\u00a0and noted:<\/p>\n
Even more interesting, though, is the reason this story is getting attention isn\u2019t because the bakery is fighting it, but because a bunch of\u00a0fans<\/em>\u00a0of the bakery have used the internet to spread the word about how they really don\u2019t appreciate Pillsbury bullying their local bakery, which no one confused with the food giant in the first place. The article above also says that General Mills asked the owner to \u201ckill the Facebook page,\u201d even though she didn\u2019t create it and has no control over it. In fact, she seems afraid that the Facebook page is making things worse. Still, it\u2019s quite a testament to modern technology that this is even possible. Can you imagine patrons of a small business standing up to a giant corporation without the small business\u2019 support in the past?<\/p>\n
However, all it\u2019s really doing is calling a lot more attention to incredible bullying by a company like General Mills against a small company that has a legitimate claim to the name. One of these days, perhaps lawyers will realize that legal bullying leads to backlash, but I guess we still haven\u2019t reach that point yet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
No comment from Pillsbury<\/strong><\/p>\n
As noted in the Salt Lake City Weekly article:\u00a0 when asked for comment, a General Mills spokesperson said only, \u201cWe routinely do not comment on pending trademark matters.\u201d\u00a0 So it\u2019s no surprise then the\u00a0Pillsbury Twitter feed\u00a0speaks nothing of the issue despite Tweets\u00a0being directed\u00a0at them.\u00a0 Even more surprising is the onslaught of conversations speaking out against Pillsbury on their own Facebook page (example here) and yet not a word from Pillsbury:<\/p>\n
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What\u2019s funny is that in Pillsbury\u2019s minds, they were trying to protect their brand and reputation by sending their legal team on this bakery.\u00a0 However, all they have succeeded in is chipping away at their own brand and causing the web to react negatively.\u00a0 In a connected society, these things are going to spread (and since the web is referential, they will stick around).<\/p>\n
The only thing Pillsbury really succeeds in here is ruining a small business and leaving a bad taste in our mouths.\u00a0 What do you think about the situation?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Recently, a small bakery in Salt Lake City called\u00a0My Dough Girl\u00a0received a legal threat from General Mills.\u00a0 What was the … <\/p>\n