Today’s dick corporate move comes to us courtesy of fast food chain Chik-fil-A, purveyor of nasty processed chicken-ish food items sold in shopping malls (except on Sundays, because they’re Christian and they want everyone in church that day):
Chik-fil-A, the country’s second-largest chain chicken restaurant (after KFC), is pressuring Vermont-based small-business owner Bo Muller-Moore to drop the phrase “Eat More Kale,” which he’s been screen-printing by hand on T-shirts and selling online and at local farmers markets since 2000. Chik-fil-A claims the words — a statement in support of local agriculture and sustainable food — are too similar to its trademarked “Eat Mor Chikin” ad slogan, and could cause confusion for its customers and “dilute” its English-challenged brand.
Wow, good thing the Chik-fil-A legal team never heard my folks tell us kids to eat more vegetables, drink more orange juice, use more sunscreen, and about a dozen other well-intentioned pieces of healthy living advice or we’d have been taken to court long ago.
Seriously, I don’t care how religious Chik-fil-A is, this is the kind of corporate asshattery that always always causes bad feelings among consumers. Anyone remember when the Walt Disney Co. sued some Florida day care centers because they had pictures of Mickey and Minnie Mouse on the walls? Or when Pizza Hut sued Papa John’s over their “better ingredients, better taste” slogan?
This is the kind of stuff that leaves a bad taste in peoples’ mouths. It’s like Chik-fil-A is picking on a small businessman just to be assholes. Nowadays with the internet, dick corporate moves like this always get found out.
Just stop it, already.
Southern Beale 
I once met a guy who tried unsuccessfully to get a Chik-Fil-A franchise. He had to fill out a 35 page questionnaire to determine if he was Jesus-y enough for them.
Corporate thuggery most fowl. And damn poultry of them too!
Now I have another reason to dislike Chik-Fil-A. Just for that I am going to go to the Eat More Kale website and buy a couple shirts! My Mama’s people are from Vermont so I feel its my patriotic duty as a sometimes Vermonter to support him against corporate greed and idiocy
Ugh. Trademark law is such a mess. Chik-Fil-A is just strong-arming them hoping to get an easy settlement cuz otherwise the attorney fees would be astronomical.
I hate how the modern judicial system sometimes allows trolling of this nature.
Howdy, stranger. I’m not from these parts, so please let me know if Chick-Fil-A sells kale or any kind of greens.
Anyone confusing chicken and kale needs help, and I don’t mean legal.
It doesn’t appear so.
Honestly, I get why companies do this, I understand the copyright issue. But seriously, their copyrighted slogan is “Eat Mor Chikin” (spelled that way, yes, it’s accompanied by a graphic of a cow writing these words, apparently in their advertising plan cows can stand on their hind legs and hold a crayon in their hooves and actually write in English but only at, like, a 3rd grade level. Go figure.) So how “Eat More Kale” is in any way similar to “Eat Mor Chikin” is beyond me. I’m not a lawyer, what do I know, but it seems the whole “3rd grade reading level” thing is part of their trademark and they really don’t have a case here, they’re just engendering ill will and bad PR for no reason whatsoever.
And this is my other pet peeve, I really hate anthropomorphism in advertising, it creeps me out. A cow telling people to eat more chicken because she doesn’t want to be dinner herself is sorta gross to me, I really want to continue thinking all of my steaks were either born wrapped in cellophane or died of natural causes after a long, happy life.
I generally don’t mind anthropomorphic characters – after all I grew up on Bugs Bunny – but there’s one that really yanks my chain from the corporate biggie here in my hometown, P&G. The ad? For Charmin toilet paper with the bear walking around with toilet paper hanging off their ass. Really? That’s going to prompt me to buy your product? Every person in the country is probably screaming, “he’s got toilet paper stuck to his ass!!!!”. Not among their brightest.
That brings to mind that old “if a bear shits in the woods” line …
The anthropomorphism I don’t like is strictly food related. I don’t want my M&Ms talking to me. I don’t want my tuna having a fully developed personality before it gets hooked and tossed in a can.
Although THIS was funny:
What little I know of Chick-Fil-A is from their signage at football and baseball games I see on TV. Agreed on the ill-will for no purpose. And I’ve read hundreds of pages of Coca-Cola’s trademark protection efforts.
Tangent: I love–I mean loooove–the confluence of poster art and advertising. So “Eat mor chikin” pales in comparison to some things I’ve seen. But that doesn’t mean I have a litho of this on my kitchen wall.
(Not for the faint of heart. Just the first link I could lay my hands on. There are many, many others.)
GAH!!!!!!!
{ runs screaming from the room }
I am gonna have nightmares about that tonight for certain ….
I’m sure Chick-Fil-A would have more standing in the lawsuit if the guy had misspelled kale and had a piece of Romaine doing the writing.
SoBe (reply button disappeared), I warned you!
It’s a very European thing; most I’ve seen are in French, Italian or German.
If I wasn’t already boycotting Chik-fil-A for being homophobic, this might just persuade me to start.