Fictional brand

A fictional brand is a nonexistent brand depicted in books, comics, films, music, television shows and video games respectively. The fictional brand may be designed to imitate, satirize or differentiate itself from a real corporate brand.[1]

Permission is typically sought before using trademarked brands in media to avoid legal proceedings. Fictional brands can overcome situations where the creators do not want to pay for permission, where a trademark owner is unwilling to approve the use of their brand, or where the product is shown in a negative light. For example, the 1994 remake of Miracle on 34th Street used the fictional department store C.F. Cole's in the film, after Macy's declined to have one of their department stores filmed in the remake.[2] Historically, many movie studios also avoided existing brands to make the films more escapist and to avoid taking attention away from star performers. Paid product placement has gradually become more frequent as it became a lucrative part of the film industry.[3][4]

More recently, fictional brands have been used for commercial purposes through the process of reverse product placement. Consumer attachment to those brands in the fictional world may be leveraged through "defictionalisation" or "productisation" in the real world. It has been suggested that the fictional brands represent brand potential rather than brand reality; they are in effect, “protobrands” that can be leveraged and transformed into registered trademarks which can derive revenue for their owners through reverse product placement or, more accurately, reverse brand placement.[5] Examples include Harry Potter's Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, now available as real candy manufactured by the Jelly Belly Company; Duff Beer, a beer brand now available for consumption in Europe which initially appeared in The Simpsons; and Staples' Dunder Mifflin paper, from the TV show The Office.

Purposes

Using a trademarked product in fictional media can result in allegations of trademark dilution.[6] Trademark dilution can occur when a brand is portrayed in a way that tarnishes or confuses the image of the brand, even when there is no competing product.[7] For example, Pussycat Cinema was blocked from showing the pornographic film Debbie Does Dallas, as the lead actress Bambi Woods performed sexual acts in an outfit similar to those worn by the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders.[6][8] Judge Ellsworth Van Graafeiland commented, "it is hard to believe that anyone who had seen defendants’ sexually depraved film could ever thereafter disassociate it from plaintiff’s cheerleaders."[9]

Many movies and television shows opt to use prominent but nonexistent brands. Some are tied to specific fictional universes, like the Big Kahuna Burger fast food restaurants in Quentin Tarantino's films, but many appear in unrelated properties.[10] For example, the fictional cigarette brand Morley was created when tobacco advertising was widespread in film and television, before the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act and Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement banned cigarette advertising in television, radio, and film. Films that did not receive sponsorship from a cigarette brand might use a fictional brand like Morley.[11] They first appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, and have since been used in many films and shows including The Twilight Zone, Naked City, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Friends, Perry Mason, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The X-Files, and Mission: Impossible.[10]

Fictional brands offer more realism than unbranded objects because they have packaging, logos, and aesthetic designs similar to real-world products.[12] The most well-known fictional brands, like Wonka Bars, have brand recognition comparable to actual products.[13] The demand for Duff Beer was so high that multiple breweries sold "Duff" beers until legally blocked by Fox Broadcasting Company.[14] Fox partnered with breweries to sell Duff beer in markets that did not have strong protection for fictional products, starting in Chile and later expanding into other parts of South America and Europe.

Trademarks have been granted to prominent fictional brands. Trademark protection has its origin in establishing signifiers that link products to their manufacturers. The mark allows a consumer to distinguish high-quality products from reputable manufacturers. In the United States, court rulings in the 1980s extended trademark protection of fiction to cover characters, settings, and objects from the fictional universe. This allowed a trademark to cover products and services that are not available to real customers. For example, a restaurateur filed for a trademark on and attempted to open "THE KRUSTY KRAB" seafood restaurants in California in 2014. Viacom sued, and in 2017, the Southern District of Texas ruled that the restaurant would violate Viacom's trademarks for SpongeBob SquarePants, even though Viacom only ever planned to depict a fictional Krusty Krab and had no plans to open a physical restaurant.[15]

Some films and shows incorporate brands as "characters" in the story. The quirky brands of Tarantino's films are juxtaposed with scenes of extreme violence. Set decorator Sandy Reynolds-Wasco says that an object like Tarantino's Red Apple Cigarettes, with its prominent grinning worm emerging from an apple, can "soften the characters, even among the incredibly bloody scenes".[16] In the HBO series Succession, the fictional family business "Waystar" is used to characterize the Roy family who run it. The science fiction series Severance introduces the fictional "Lumon" brand and intentionally presents it in a negative light, as cold and dystopian.[16]

Well-known fictional brands

Fictional brands lists

• List of fictional beverages
• List of fictional vehicles

See also

Product placement

• Brand
• Trademark

• Brand management
• Fictional company
• Saturday Night Live commercial – frequently featuring fictional brands, many listed with this entry

External links

• Not a Real Thing: Sorting the Minutiae of Imaginary Worlds
• Searching for a Big Kahuna Burger
• Topher's List of Fictional Cereals