Chris Hill: MarketFoolery@Fool.com is our email address. From Jason Ryan, who writes:
"You may have already seen this, but I thought I would pass it along just in case. The launch
of Uncle Martian, a Chinese company that makes premier athletic apparel, and has a company
logo remarkably similar to that of Under Armour." And I had tweeted out on the Market Foolery
feed the story that Jason had sent us, which includes the prominent red and white
Uncle Martian logo.
Jason Moser: (laughs) Now, when you say "remarkably similar," let's hearken back. I think had
talked about the Domino' Donuts thing at one point in Kazakhstan. This is like that.
Hill: Share that for folks who may have missed it.
Moser: My wife works at the state department, and for about five years, we lived overseas.
We lived in Cairo, Egypt for three years; moved to Astana, Kazakhstan for another two.
It was in Kazakhstan that I saw, in one of the Ramstore grocery stores one day as we
were shopping, this little kiosk at the end of the aisle. And I thought, "Oh my god, that
looks like a Dunkin' Donuts!" And I'm just thinking, "thank goodness, we need a little
touch of Americana here."
Hill: Dunkin' Donuts, if you've ever seen one, the font of the lettering is very familiar,
the color scheme, very familiar.
Moser: Yeah. Now, my eyes were already failing me at that point in my life, so I couldn't
quite read at the end of the aisle there. But I saw the color and the logo, and walked
up there, and it was not Dunkin' Donuts. It was Domino' Donuts, same font, same coloring,
down to the apostrophe at the end of the Domino. Why is there an apostrophe at the end of the
Domino?! It's not supposed to be there. But it was there! And it was just ... we tried
to figure it out, and found a little more about the story. I think Dunkin' Donuts had
tried to make some inroads there, didn't do so well.
Taylor Muckerman: They left some packaging behind.
Moser: Yeah, maybe they got kicked out, and people kept some IP and altered it a little
bit, and there you go. You can google it, Domino' Donuts, and you'll see it. It's pretty
crazy.
Hill: So, back to Jason's email, because in addition to flagging story -- and, thank you,
I, in fact, I had not seen until Jason sent the email -- he goes on to write, "First,
it's noteworthy and almost commendable how brazen the knockoff is."
Moser: (laughs) Commendable!
Hill: "The Uncle Martian company itself posted a side-by-side comparison of the Uncle Martian
and Under Armour logo so there could be no mistaking of their awareness of the similarities.
But, more importantly, what is the extent of the openness of this particular knockoff
say about the potential troubles Under Armour might face enforcing its trademark in a potentially
important market like China? Is Uncle Martian -- " (laughs) I just love the name. "Is Uncle
Martian so open about their corporate plagiarism because they know they can get away with it?"
I think the larger question there is one that applies not just to Under Armour, but to any
number of businesses. As I said, I had tweeted this out on the Market Foolery feed, and Tim
Hanson replied with a link to a story that included photographs of other Chinese rip-offs
of well-known American brands and logos. My favorite one is the MasterCard logo for a
food kiosk entitled "MasterBeef."
But, look. This doesn't go in the plus column if you're Under Armour. This certainly, to
some degree, can't we at least agree, to some degree, maybe just 1%, this hurts them?
Moser: Perhaps? Maybe? I could also flip that around and say it helps them. I'm pretty sure
Steph Curry isn't going to be signing with Uncle Martian any time soon.
Hill: (laughs)
Moser: And I'm only being half facetious there. You don't want to underestimate the power
of a brand. This isn't the first time something like this has happened, and it won't be the
last. But, if we look at Under Armour to date, really no presence in China up until now.
We look at the last earnings call, they talked about their exposure to China and how they
are growing there. They earn more revenue in China last quarter than they did the full
year of 2014. They are focused on growing there.
But again, going back to the power of that brand, and just using basketball as an example
-- there are 300-400 million estimated basketball lovers in China. It's a very popular sport
there. I think, when you have world-class athletes talking your book for you, wherever
the country is, I think that has a very strong effect, even more so than here. I think, in
developing economies, they can hold a lot of sway. I think that you have such a popular
sport there like basketball, you have Under Armour making a lot of inroads in the basketball
market, really a lot of success in that Steph Curry line, I wouldn't sell that short. I
think this is something we'll look back in a year or two and chuckle about it. I don't
think this is really something that threatens their business in any kind of a long-term
way.
Muckerman: I'm chuckling right now. That name is fantastic. It's like they had the Boaty
McBoatface research vessel in Europe, Obviously, they turned that name down. But, Uncle Martian.
Hill: Uncle Martian. And, presumably Nike has dealt with this for years, as well, not
just with the symbol but also the name.
Muckerman: Tesla was hesitant to even sell their cars at the very beginning in China,
because they knew the second they touched shore, somebody was going to dissemble it
and reverse-engineer their own Tesla. And sure enough, there's a few companies that
are already selling almost identical replicas of Teslas in China.
Moser: The first thing that comes to my mind with this is Looney Tunes Marvin the Martian,
right? That should be their logo. They didn't even try to make it different!
Muckerman: They just lowered one letter--
Moser: There's one little gap ...
Hill: They separated the U and the A, and now it's a U and a barely-M.
Moser: It's not even an M! It's like Uncle Nartian! It's like the apostrophe on Domino! Weak!
Hill: I've said this before another situations: I really hope, whichever person at Uncle Martian
came up with the name, I hope they got a bonus.
Muckerman: Absolutely. Moser: Sure.
Muckerman: They're getting more headlines that way.