InSinkErator is suing NBC for "irreparably tarnishing" its product.

Let's say you have to buy a new garbage disposal. Can you imagine yourself thinking:

Any brand but InSinkErator. I think they're dangerous because I watched a young woman on a TV show show off her superhero powers by putting her hand down a drain and turning on the InSinkErator garbage disposal so it chopped her fingers off. Her fingers grew back. I don't think my fingers would grow back if I used an InSinkErator to chop them off. I'm staying away from that brand.

And yet the company that manufactures the InSinkErator presumes we're all just that dumb.

Emerson Electric has filed suit against NBC because a character on the show Heroes demonstrated her supernatural powers by purposefully mangling her fingers in a garbage disposal that just happened to bear the InSinkErator name. Emerson thinks the scene "casts the disposer in an unsavory light, irreparably tarnishing the product."

If Emerson Electric had been my client, I would have suggested they ask NBC for permission to use the scene promotional purposes, with a  concept something like, "Strong enough to stand up to a superhero. Imagine what it does to potato peels." I bet NBC would have let them, too.  

Source: Media Post's Around the Net

Comments

[Urrrgh]

The whole thing may have somethig to do with the fact that NBC is owned by General Electric, an Emerson Electric competitor.

[ray ruzicka]

You are totally missing the point.
Not everyone who watches network prime is intelligent enough to know they shnould not stick their hand down a sink (think young kids). In addition, if there were an accident traced back to this episode, the manufacturer could be dragged into the litigation. I'll guarantee you that NBC's commercial clearance department would not have approved an ad that shows a hand put into a disposal (for litigation reasons). Its about time the networks woke up and became more responsible with their programming...and hold themselves up to the same standards they expect from their sponsors. Hooray for the manufacturer.