Cell C puzzled by ASA ‘Power to You’ ruling
A battle over the slogan “Power to You” has been playing itself out at the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA) after a complaint by Vodacom shareholder Vodafone.
Vodafone claimed that it has been using the tagline “Power to you” in the company’s global marketing campaign (which included South Africa) in 2009, accusing Cell C of the ‘unauthorised and offending use of the slogan which was blatantly and slavishly misappropriated [with] the advertiser passing it off as its own.’
Cell C hit back, saying that it was using the slogan as part of its own rebranding campaign and widely registered trademarks for “the power is in your hands” as well as “power to you” as part of their brand protection around the pay off line.
“The slogan ‘power to you’ has been registered as a trademark for Cell C, and this was done prior to Vodafone/Vodacom’s applications for the same trademark,” Cell C said.
Cell C CEO Lars Reichelt said today that he is puzzled by the ASA’s ruling on the use of the term ‘Power to You’ in their advertising as Cell C was the first company to apply for this slogan to be registered as a trademark in South Africa.
“The ASA has found in favour of Vodafone which is an international company over Cell C which is a South African company in our own territory even though we strongly doubt whether South African consumers would recognise ‘Power to You’ as being associated with Vodafone,” Reichelt said.
Cell C said that they are currently studying the ruling and will decide on their next steps soon.
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