Yesterday, the marketing world was up in arms over Nutella sending a cease and desist to the brand’s biggest fan, Sara Rosso. Seven years ago, Rosso created World Nutella Day which now has 40,000 followers on Facebook. Nutella claimed the page was an unauthorized use of their intellectual property and trademarks.
Oh how quickly the tide turns for brands when they realize lawyers are clueless and consumers run the show. Following the kerfuffle, Nutella has dropped its cease and desist order and issued an apologetic statement to Italian news site Corriere della Sera which the Huffington Post translated:
“A positive contact between Ferrero [Nutella’s parent company] and Sara Rosso, owner of the non-official fan page called World Nutella Day, closed the case. Ferrero wishes to express its sincere gratitude to Sara Rosso for her passion for Nutella, a gratitude it extends to all the fans of the Nutella World Day.”
Corriere della Sara explains the initial issue stemmed from a “routine procedure in defense of trademarks, activated following improper use of the Nutella trademark within the fan page.”
Hmm. Sounds like the brand has a bunch of robots running things. In any case, the kerfuffle is over.
Everyone good now? Can we go back to business as usual? And could all the seemingly social media-illiterate lawyers in the world please attend a Social Media 101 class so we can avoid any further idiocy?
No wait, don’t! Otherwise we wouldn’t have anything fun like this to write about.
