Posted on 10/30/2009 11:40:35 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Battle of the South Florida billboards heats up
The billboard catches the attention of drivers and truckers traveling on the highways. "YOUR WIFE IS HOT" -- BETTER GET YOUR A/C FIXED," it reads, in big bold letters.
A clever and sexy slogan developed in January by Air Around the Clock, an A/C and appliance service based in Broward County. But now the slogan is generating a lot of heat after its competitor, All Year Cooling, flipped the phrase this summer.
"YOUR WIFE IS NOT HOT! Because you called All Year Cooling to replace your A/C rather than the other guys," the competing billboard reads.
"It's quite upsetting", says Michael Lang, operations manager for Air Around the Clock. "We sent them a cease and desist order to stop, and they persisted so that's why we went ahead and filed the lawsuit."
Air Around the Clock, in a 28-page complaint, is accusing its competitor of trademark infringement and misrepresenting their services. The federal lawsuit also states that the advertisement is likely to cause confusion and deceive consumers as to the origin of the services.
"They have the same colors, the same graphics...our's are yellow and black, their's are yellow and black," Lang said. "You know, if they wanted to try and go about it in a different way, and not take our design maybe it would have been different, but they did."
Meredith Mendez, an attorney for All Year Cooling says her client put a clever spin on it.
"It's just fair competition and they're just mad we came up with a more clever slogan," Mendez said. Although Air Around the Clock has a trademark registration, Mendez doesn't believe the complaint will hold up in court.
"Their state trademark registration was merely an afterthought and it was done right after we started using our billboards," she said.
"We have plenty of other competitors that compete in a fair manner, we just felt like they went about it in an unfair manner and if you want to come up with something, come up with your own ad campaign," Lang said.
It's a battle of the billboards that both sides plan to air-out in court.
That’s pretty funny... almost as funny as the one company trying to legally stop the other company from their billboard.
His wife was "hot", too.
The question is, is that billboard going to hurt hid reputation, or help him get more girlfriends?
.... trademark infringement...
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Really? I’ve seen the same ‘Your wife is hot’ signs here in Texas.
I seriously doubt anyone has a trademark.
I saw the same “wife is hot” sign in Timonium, Maryland (by the fairgrounds) on York Rd, a few months ago. Unless they have a franchise in MD, well...
sheesh, get over it boys
My guess it is the fact they mention the company by name on their bilbord and the company name is most likely tm’d.
That can’t be real....
It must be winter time because the reporters are doing storys from lazy third world miami.
"We don't clown around with coffee."
Bingo.
She spent a lot her alimony on that.
Definitely not a logical move on her part but...”Hell hath no fury”, etc.
Don’t I know it!
These billboards could be ads for the spy shop that sells this equipment?
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