Yeah, that's not our ad...

[simplyanother]

Dear other craft store...You've confused the hell out of your potential customers by making your flyer look almost exactly like one our store would put out. Thanks.

First woman came up to the registers demanding to know where the baskets that were on sale this week were. There aren't any baskets on sale this week. She said it was in the flyer she got in this mornings paper. We didn't have an ad in the paper this week. We had one LAST week--and that's what we thought she was talking about (she didn't have the ad with her). She left, pissed off at her newspaper carrier--whom she thinks held the ad hostage for a week. We didn't realize until later that she was talking about the competitors ad.


Second woman walked up to a co-worker--just annoyed as hell that she couldn't find some shit that was on sale--SHE had an ad. Co-worker came up to me, with the ad, asks "do you know where these random thingies are?". I look at the ad--it LOOKS like one of ours... but it isn't. Loved it when the coworker handed the ad back to the customer--turned back to the front--showing the store name, in big letters "Ma'am, This isn't us...". The customer was not bitchy, she was apologetic. It was a nice change.

Several people came up to the registers with a 50% off coupon that wouldn't scan. Several people didn't believe us--when we read closer--that wait, this wasn't our ad. And nope, can't sign to use it---because it doesn't start until tuesday. One woman had the coupon and bitched at my coworker for about 5 minutes--saying that it WAS TOO OURS. I don't know how the woman was finally convinced that we weren't trying to dick her over, but she eventually left, and all was right in craft store land... (until the next person came in and tried to use their coupon).


Yeah, @@.

[Aethian]

Oh gods, I hate when stores do that. And I think corporate does it on purpose too.

[Samaliel]

The should be laws against this. Maybe there are. But it's probably not worth the hassle...

[cinema guy]

Even if there was a law, your coporate office would sue their corporate office - they would get some money, the lawyers would get paid, and you would still have had the hassle.

[Boozy]

I don't think the other store designed their ad like that on purpose. All that achieves is potential customers going to their competitor by mistake.

I'm sure amore than a few people found themselves at the OP's store and said, "Ah, to hell with it. I'm here now. I'll get my shopping done here."

[matty]

I guess this is part of the reason that companies are so protective of their brand images. What came to mind was a long-running intellectual property/copyright court "battle" that has been running in Australia.

Cadbury and Darrell Lea (a family owned chocolate manufacturer/retailer) have been locked in a trademark claim over the colour purple - yes, a colour!

[Samaliel]

Cadbury and Darrell Lea (a family owned chocolate manufacturer/retailer) have been locked in a trademark claim over the colour purple - yes, a colour!

There have been a similar battle, only even dumber, around here. Kraft Foods vs. a local seamstress from South of France. The seamstress' first name is Milka, which happens to be the name of a chocolate brand owned by Kraft Foods as well. Said chocolate brand was famous for their ads with a purple cow and their purple packaging. The seamstress happened to have put up a website the background of which was, yes, you guessed it right, purple.

Though it was not exactly the same purple, and though the seamstress couldn't quite do anything about her name, Kraft Foods chose to sue her, for cybersquatting the milka.fr domain name and unfair use of a registered trademark. That trial is one of the most unfair stories I've ever heard, but my point of view might be biased.

[marasbaras]

That trial is one of the most unfair stories I've ever heard, but my point of view might be biased.

Corps are beginning to lose those trials as the market for names gets more mature. myspace.co.uk just successfully defended against myspace.com.

[Samaliel]

In this case, the poor woman got involved in a 4-year-long procedure, and ultimately lost. She was released of the cybersquatting charges, though, since the domain name had been bought by her children as a birthday gift and she didn't try to speculate on it.

But she still fell for unfair use of a registered trademark even though she didn't get much traffic from people looking for info on chocolates before the whole thing hit the press, and Kraft Foods only registered Milka for food products, so she had every right to use the name for her seamstress shop.

[Ironclad Alibi]

I don't think the other store designed their ad like that on purpose. All that achieves is potential customers going to their competitor by mistake.

I'm sure amore than a few people found themselves at the OP's store and said, "Ah, to hell with it. I'm here now. I'll get my shopping done here."

You need to work on your conspiracy skills. The other store did it on purpose so all of their SCs would go to simplyanother's store.

[simplyanother]

You need to work on your conspiracy skills. The other store did it on purpose so all of their SCs would go to simplyanother's store.

And only MY location. Of this, I am convinced.

[Apathy]

I don't understand how people get into the mindset that a store's purposely trying to screw them over. I mean, business is pretty underhanded, but a big box store isn't going to actively try and rip you off. They simply don't need to. They do it through perfectly legitimate ways all the time.

[Listerfiend]

I can vouch for simplyanother, too... I've compared my stores ads with those of our competitor, and they often use the same format, even color scheme (a few weeks ago it was brown, lime green, and pink, last week's was blue...). It's incredibly annoying on its own, not including all of the crap customers give us because of it. They think that we're the same company and often demand to know why we won't honor their sales, why we don't carry the same merchandise, etc. And like in the first post that also leads to customers ignoring or not paying attention to what ad they have, which leads to more confusion.

[pssorens]

Another local chain discount stores ad looks enough like ours every single week. when our Sc's shove a single page out of the ad under my nose and demand said product I can't tell if it's our ad with out crosschecking my emergency copy that I keep hidden away from customers that will run away with it forever.

[kiokushitaka]

Plain and simple, people refuse to just READ. They see colors and layout and assume it's all the same. If they'd just READ the text that's in front of them, a lot of this would be avoided.