Posted Monday 4th March 2024
The recent Mondelez and Tony’s Chocolonely case highlights the importance of brands staying true to its values and missions and is an important lesson on how to promote those values in the face of apparent adversity.
The use of purple wrappers by Tony’s, to highlight child labour issues in the cocoa supply chain, caused Mondelez to spring into action alleging Trade Mark infringement of their Trade Mark for their Milka lilac colour.
Cleverly, Tony’s seized on the opportunity to re-focus the issue and highlight its anti-slavery campaign in its reaction statement “ Most big chocolate companies don’t pay a living income price for all their cocoa, resulting in exploitation on cocoa farms, with 1.56 million children involved in child labour in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.” Tony’s has since unveiled a new grey colour to replace the purple, which appears to be a side issue to the central and well heard messaging around anti-slavery from Tony’s.
This is an excellent example of the importance of brand values and missions, staying true to those and using opportunities negative or positive to get those values and missions heard.
This article is for reference purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon as such. Specific legal advice about your specific circumstances should always be sought separately before taking or deciding not to take any action.
Joelson has advised My Emissions, the London based tech start-up and the official carbon labelling partner of Just Eat, on its £1.3 million fundraising Seed Round to Become the go-to platform for carbon assessments across the food industry.
Joelson, a leading London law firm, has been awarded Ecologi’s ‘For Our Planet’ Silver Award this Earth Day.
We have partnered with Ecologi and are now a Climate Action workforce. Through Ecologi we are planting trees across the world to grow our own forest to offset our carbon emissions.
