Neotel versus iBurst
Neotel has welcomed the recent ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) Tribunal which grants it permission to continue using the colour Orange in its advertising. The ruling follows a complaint lodged by iBurst last October seeking to prevent Neotel from using the colour Orange in its marketing and advertising.
In dismissing the appeal, the ASA Tribunal said iBurst had failed to establish that it had any protective advertising goodwill in the use of the colour Orange. The Tribunal did not believe that the use of the colour Orange in the company’s advertising and marketing had become the signature of its products.
Neotel had stood by its original submission to ASA that an entity could not claim monopoly over colour in its advertising. Neotel maintained that the colour Orange was commonly used in South Africa by various telecoms and internet services providers and no entity could monopolise its use.
“We feel vindicated by the ASA Tribunal’s ruling and we hope it will serve as a lesson to those competitors who seek to use ulterior means to gain a competitive advantage over us”, says Wandile Zote, Executive Head of Corporate Communications and Branding at Neotel.
“We welcome tough competition from whichever quarter it comes as long as the rules of the game are the same for everybody in our industry and as long as everybody adheres to the same set of rules”, he concluded.
Neotel versus iBurst – comments and discussion
Loading ...