Celebrating our 60th TM Anniversary with New Music Videos (The Lawyers are Back!)
Last autumn, we posted a video entitled “Don’t Say Velcro”, about our world-famous VELCRO® Brand fasteners; we enlisted a choir of “lawyers” who begged you to remember that “this is *bleeping* hook and loop,” not “Velcro.” Some of you loved it, others… well, not so much. What we could not have expected was the sheer level of engagement we saw across the world: 6M+ views, tweets from John Mayer, comments from Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN, and what was most fun for us: your many posts in response to our video.
The video aimed to educate everyone about our trademark – how to use it and the importance for us to protect it. We’re proud of our efforts, as our team was recently recognized as the Household and Consumer Goods Trademark Team of the Year by World Trademark Review and the video itself won a Gold Telly Award! But we’re not stopping there: our treasured trademark turns 60 in the United States this year, and to celebrate, we’re taking your responses to build a NEW campaign. We’re poking more fun at ourselves, sharing your (ahem) colorful feedback and hoping to get more people on board with what the “VELCRO” trademark is and what it isn’t.
Today, we launched “Thank You For Your Feedback,” a new music video parodying our own efforts to protect our trademark and toast our customers and fans by incorporating their alternative names for hook and loop (“grippy grass,” “wool and claw,” “thunder seams”) into a new series of ads and their tweets directly into our song lyrics:
As long as you know that is hook and loop on those store shelves,
it’s okay this English dude wants us to sue ourselves.
(Bleep) their hooks, (Bleep) their loops. Mr. Banana Wrote
Hey, at least he said hook and loop together in that quote!
Hook and loop was invented in 1946 when Swiss inventor George de Mestral noticed that burr plants kept sticking to his dog’s fur. Seventy years later, we’re truly proud that engineers and innovators have been able to turn to VELCRO® Brand products to help them create everything from space suits to stadium turf or baby diapers to blood-pressure cuffs. By educating consumers about our trademark, we’re also helping to protect them from purchasing products incorrectly sold as VELCRO® Brand products.
For over half a century, VELCRO® Brand hook and loop has held together key pieces of our customers’ lives. We value their support deeply and take their opinions of us incredibly seriously. But even the most serious issues need a little levity, from time to time. We’ve earned a few laughs, and we want to use this moment to share them with all of you.
What’s more, we’ve got another video we are working on that we’re thrilled to be launching with you this year, exploring the creative, funny, even (dare we say it?) sexy side of our trademark. From fake ads highlighting your suggested names for ‘hook and loop’ to our first foray into hip-hop, we can’t wait to share the projects we’ve been working on as we reflect on this landmark moment.
Enjoy our video; we worked hard on it and you may have helped to make it with your tweets and comments! We hope you’ll share it with your social networks. And if you have any feedback – we’re eager to hear it. Who knows, you might just make it into our next video!
Note: This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Trademark Registration for the “VELCRO®” mark in the United States. The term is separately registered in almost every country in the world and is the subject of more than 300 trademark registrations worldwide.
