I saw a commercial on tv the other day where a big umbrella was following people around. My first thought was that Citigroup had started a new ad campaign. But at the end of the commercial, it was revealed that the commercial was for Travelers Insurance.
Do you think these are confusingly similar?
Well, it turns out that Citigroup owned Travelers from for a short time, but sold it in 2005. In 2007, Travelers licensed the trademark rights to the umbrella and has been aggressively using it ever since.
I think Citigroup made a mistake by granting Travelers the right to use its umbrella. Citigroup is permitting confusion and dilution. First, I was confused because I thought the umbrella meant Travelers was Citigroup, and pretty soon I wont associate the umbrella with anything since it is no longer exclusively used by Citigroup.
