A great piece, at the Los Angeles Times, "
WWII poster calls for calm; now it stokes frenzy, feud."
Has a piece of advice ever seemed so apt, or so frightfully ironic?
Thirteen years ago, Stuart Manley stumbled upon a slightly faded red poster tucked at the bottom of a box of books he had bought at auction. Unfolding it, he found himself staring at a relic of World War II, a long-forgotten piece of government propaganda bearing the logo of the British crown and this pithy message:
Keep calm and carry on.
Charmed by its classic design and no-fuss stoicism, Manley and his wife, Mary, framed the vintage poster and hung it up by the cash register in their secondhand bookshop in a disused Victorian train station in the far north of England. After many admiring comments and inquiries from customers, Manley started selling copies — behind Mary's back, because she didn't want to commercialize it.
Ahem. Enter perhaps the most commercialized British product since David Beckham.
Manley's little side venture spawned a marketing and cultural phenomenon, inspiring a million imitations around the world ("Keep calm and kill zombies," anyone?) and also, alas, one very acrimonious feud.
The Manleys and other traders are caught in a spat with an enterprising Englishman who, after launching his own line of "Keep calm and carry on" products, trademarked the phrase with European authorities two years ago. A slogan originally intended as a public exhortation to a nation at war is now the intellectual property of one person, who has forced some other vendors to stop using it.
The businessman, a former TV producer named Mark Coop, insists he's simply protecting the interests and brand of the company he has worked hard to build since 2007. His foes accuse him of trying to monopolize a piece of history.
"He's a smart chap," says Stuart Manley. "No ethics, but smart."
The Manleys and their allies are hoping that their legal appeal to overturn the trademark, which gives Coop exclusive rights to "Keep calm and carry on" in all 27 countries of the European Union, will succeed. A decision is expected soon.
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