Tuesday, August 23, 2011

I'm not sure whether to laugh or throw up...

Kellogg Co. is suing a Mayan cultural defense nonprofit group, the Maya Archaeology Initiative (MAI), over the nonprofit's use of a logo featuring an image of a toucan. The suit states that Kellogg is concerned that the group's use of the toucan logo might create "customer confusion." MAI uses a somewhat abstract but still realistic and dignified representation of the colorful bird, which is native to the Mayan homeland area in southern Mexico and Central America. Kellogg uses the character Toucan Sam, an absurd-looking cartoon, to represent it's heavily sweetened children's breakfast cereal Froot Loops.

Just for clarification, here is the MAI logo:


Here is Toucan Sam:

You can, of course, see why Kellogg feels that there might be a problem. After all, after viewing the two images side-by-side, I have the sudden urge to never eat another bite of any Kellogg's product as long as I live.

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