Eat More Kale! Eat Less Chick-fil-A!

Used properly, trademarks are a good thing. They help us identify the source of goods and services so that we can rely on brand and reputation when we buy products. McDonald's is known for being cheap, easy, and fast. The Ritz is known for being expensive and luxurious. This is beneficial for both the producer and the consumer.

However grasping for too much of a good thing results in an evil outcome. Many corporations use their considerable money power to do the wrong thing with trademarks and try to control too much. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Luckily trademarks are dependent on people power (as well as trademark law) and people power can be used as a check and balance against corporate money power by decreasing its ability to earn money. If a company does wrong, its trademark can then be associated with its misdeeds, and those associations can then cause the producer to lose business rather than gain business. Think Enron.

It behooves corporations to use their power wisely or suffer natural consequences.

Chick-fil-A has done wrong and has become a corporation that deserves some natural consequences. Chick-fil-A supports discrimination when it funds anti-gay groups (see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/01/Chick-fil-A-donated-anti-gay-groups-2009_n_1069429.html). and it is trying to control too much when it tries to block others from using the phrase "Eat More..." (see http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2011/1128/Eat-more-kale-A-David-vs.-Golaith-fight-with-Chick-fil-A).

Here is what you can do to correct these wrongs. Ask everyone to "Eat More Kale! Eat Less Chick-fil-A!"

Email it. Twitter it. Facebook it. Paper-mail it. Leave it behind at Chick-fil-A restaurants. Just do it. It's easy. Hopefully Chick-fil-A and others will get the point and change their position when their business loses millions of dollars now and in the future because they made these bad business decisions. Eating more kale and less Chick-fil-A will make our world a healthier and happier place.

Eat More Kale! Eat Less Chick-fil-A!