The National Pork Producers Council is applauding the dismissal of a Humane Society of the United States effort to block the sale of the “Pork. The Other White Meat” marketing campaign.
Last week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in favor of the National Pork Producers Council in its appeal to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the Humane Society of the United States under which the HSUS has been attempting to block the NPPC’s 2006 sale of the “Pork. The Other White Meat” marketing campaign to the National Pork Board.
Michael Formica, the Assistant Vice President and Counsel Domestic Policy with the National Pork Producers Council, explains the sale included the intellectual property associated with the slogan as well as the campaign itself and the trade mark for “Pork. The Other White Meat”.
The “Pork. The Other White Meat” campaign is widely considered one of the most successful marketing campaigns in history. It is still to this day one of the top three or four most widely recognized and associated trade marks in all of marketing history. It’s up there with the McDonald’s arches. It’s become part of the common language. The Other White, people know that. That is pork.
It was transferred and sold to the Pork Board largely because the Pork Board was created and formed and their charge, as a checkoff organization, is to engage on behalf of producers in research, education and then promotion of those products. NPPC, our charge is less research and promotion.
~ Michael Formica, National Pork Producers Council
Formica acknowledges, while this is an important ruling and the pork sector hopes it will bring the matter to an end, the Humane Society of the United States still has further opportunities to appeal, including taking the matter to the Supreme Court.
