‘You have to make a decision!’ you exclaim in a muffled
shout, knowing that an entire afternoon of effort is riding on this one moment.
Your partner nods calmly, and with an intense focus stares at the remaining
spots on the board. “D3” he states, quietly but confidently. “It’s a hit.
You’ve sunk my battleship” comes the disappointed reply from the other side of
the divider. For a moment you sit in shock, until…
“Dilly Dilly!” your partner screams out, letting you know
you have accomplished something great together. And what better phrase to
commemorate the occasion? But where did the phrase even come from, and why does
it seem that everyone can’t get enough of it? Who came up with it, and what
were their motivations?
If you have watched television, or interacted with almost
anyone who has in the past 6 months or so, you’ve likely heard the phrase
“Dilly Dilly” before. Generally used as an exclamation of approval or
excitement, the cries have swept the nation since the phrase’s debut in August 2017.
While some phrases arise naturally and gain popularity through frequent use (or
in today’s world, memes), others are carefully crafted through much trial and
error. Such is the case with the phrase “Dilly Dilly”, which was created by
marketers for the Bud Light (Anheuser-Busch InBev) brand.
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| Bud Light is ready to go to battle over a competitor's use of its medieval-themed slogan! (Photo credit: Max Pixel/FreeGreatPicture.com) |
The phrase has proven so popular, that Bud Light’s parent
company is even preparing Super Bowl ads featuring the slogan. With all of this
investment, it’s not surprising that Bud Light is pretty protective of the “intellectual
property” they have cultivated. That protection was apparent in a rather amusing
way recently, when a micro-brewery in Minnesota decided to name one of their
beers the “Dilly Dilly Mosaic Double IPA”. As expected, Bud Light wasn’t about
to let a direct competitor utilize their slogan, and chose to send legal
documents to try to protect their intellectual property rights by forcing the
micro-brewery to cease and desist. The reason this request made the news was
due to the lighthearted way in which the cease and desist letter was sent; it
was delivered by an “Old Timey Town Crier” who showed up unannounced dressed in
full garb, reading out the legal document in old-timey language (as described
in this article). While this clever
mechanism for delivery of legal documents made the news due to its peculiarity,
I thought it would serve as a great platform for discussing why intellectual property
rights exist in the first place, and why the court system would enforce them.
(For proof of how this enforcement actually plays out, check out this recent settlement awarding $710,000 to ‘Grumpy Cat’)
I have heard reporters and commentators on television
stations including CNBC and ESPN happily use the phrase “Dilly Dilly” as its
popularity has grown, and Bud Light doesn’t seem to have any problem with this
use. So why demand that one company cease and desist, while another is allowed
(or even encouraged) to use the phrase? The answer lies in the fact that the
value relies crucially on how popular or widespread the saying becomes, but
at the same time how directly consumers relate the saying to the particular
brand.
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| Companies invest a lot of time and money coming up with new slogans! (Photo credit: Max Pixel/FreeGreatPicture.com) |
Intellectual Property can take many forms. You may think of
a cool new way to design a mousetrap, and to protect your design with a patent.
Or you may come up with a new hit song that everyone seems to love. No matter
the form of intellectual property, you’re only going to invest time and effort
into trying to create it (likely failing many times along the way) if you think
that you can at least recoup all of the money you invested by selling your
successful product. In the case of Bud Light’s “Dilly Dilly” phrase, the
company wants the phrase to be popular, but doesn’t want competing brands to be
able to associate themselves with it. If there were no way to enforce ownership
of such a phrase, you could just wait for someone else to develop a cool slogan
and then steal it for yourself, rather than investing all of the time and money
in failed attempts along the way.
As with most things in economics, it all comes down to
incentives. To give companies an incentive to create new products, ideas, or
even slogans, the government creates and enforces laws that forbid other
entities from being able use those ideas or slogans for themselves. In other
words, the government grants monopoly rights for some limited duration of time
(perhaps 10 or 20 years), during which the inventor can earn profits on their
property without other firms competing those profits away.
