Global household products company, and the company behind brands like Febreze, Fairy and Mr. Clean, Procter & Gamble, has applied to trademark popular text-speak acronyms like "LOL", "NBD" and even "WTF".
If that seems like a ridiculous idea to you, then it also seems like a ridiculous idea to me too. But P&G is anxious to tap into the large and ever-more-affluent millennial generation. And it seems to think that, by putting out products and advertising using these acronyms, it will endear itself to the under-35 demographic.
It's by no means certain that the US Patents and Trademarks Office will allow P&G's marketing move - surely it is just like trademarking a regular word, like "ostrich " or "clean", and can't possibly be legal? - but it just shows the depths to which aggressive capitalism is willing to sink.
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