by Quentin Langley
It was one of the most powerful scenes in movie history – and memorably parodied in Life of Brian. To avoid the terrible punishment of crucifixion, all the rebel slaves had to do was identify their leader, Spartacus. But just as Kirk Douglas stands to identify himself as Spartacus, so do two others, closely followed by more, until every member of captured rebel army is yelling “I am Spartacus”.
Your reputation is part of a conversation now – but a conversation that is not limited to a few drunks gathered around a bar. This conversation is worldwide. You do have legal recourse. If someone infringes your intellectual property or defames your reputation, you can take legal action. If you can find Spartacus. And if the attempt to find him doesn’t blow the story to a hundred times its previous size.
Just like Kirk Douglas’s Spartacus, Greenpeace doesn’t hide its role in leading these conversations. But, as Nestlé found, getting Greenpeace to take down its illegal material doesn’t always help. The parody of the Kit Kat advert, in which the office worker bites into an orangutan’s finger, infringed Nestlé’s copyright, and YouTube dutifully removed it. But other versions were rapidly posted, and the story moved on to debating Nestlé’s heavy-handed tactics. The story was bigger than ever. This was a crowd now, and you can’t sue a crowd. But if you anger it, you can turn it into a mob.
Brandjack News 