SwBratcher's Posts

Recently we got the best-ever cease and desist letter. We're no stranger to the genre, so what could possibly make this one stand out from the rest?

First, it's 12 pages long and very well-researched (except on one point); it even includes screengrabs of the offending item from our site. And we know they're not messing around because they invested in the best and brightest legal minds.

But what makes this cease and desist so very, very special is that it's for a fake product we launched for April Fool's day.

It wasn't the iCade, or the Dharma Initiative Clock, or even the Tribbles 'n' Bits Breakfast Cereal.

No, it was the Canned Unicorn Meat.

The very special but also very real letter is from the National Pork Board, who claims we're infringing on the slogan "The Other White Meat," a slogan they're apparently thinking about phasing out anyways. A screengrab of the product page is below.

Luckily, the Sisters at Radiant Farms, where the unicorns are nursed through old age before being slaughtered, canned, and brought to market at ThinkGeek, have nothing to worry about--this kind of use is protected as a parody. (We're hoping the NPB doesn't tell the Sisters that unicorns don't actually exist; it'd break their little sparkly hearts.)

Here, in all its porky glory, is the first page of the letter:

We'd like to publicly apologize to the NPB for the confusion over unicorn and pork--and for their awkward extended pause on the phone after we had explained our unicorn meat doesn't actually exist. From our press release [PDF or text]:

"It was never our intention to cause a national crisis and misguide American citizens regarding the differences between the pig and the unicorn," said Scott Kauffman, President and CEO of Geeknet. "In fact, ThinkGeek's canned unicorn meat is sparkly, a bit red, and not approved by any government entity."

We'd also like to extend a special discount to everyone we offended with our portrayal of Unicorn Meat as "the new white meat." For a limited time, take $10 off any order of $40 or more by using the code PORKBOARD at checkout, good until 6/30/2010 at 11:59PM ET.

The PORKBOARD discount is good on any ThinkGeek product, but you might want to check out shirts like Periodic BaCoN or Prime Cuts of Unicorn. There's also the popular Tactical Bacon or really anything from our entire line of pork-inspired products. Note: Please excuse the Zombies in the Bacon special interest section, we like to mix our meats.

Finally, thanks, National Pork Board, for giving us yet another reason to keep the April Fool's Day tradition alive. We'll always wonder if our Canned Unicorn Meat played some small, magical part in your rethinking of your brand.

UPDATE 6/21 2:50p ET: Due to popular request, and after some interest on the intarwebz, you can now download our original press release [PDF or text]. It was unfortunately rejected by the newswires so you won't find it elsewhere--kinda like unicorn meat.

Thanks for sharing this with me, Caroline. This is awesome.