American Red Cross and J&J Settle Logo Lawsuit


As I predicted, the American Red Cross was all but victorious in its dispute over the logo – a red cross. If you’ll recall, Johnson & Johnson sued the Red Cross over using the logo on products, claiming J&J owned the trademark. The American Red Cross is older and has been using it for longer than J&J…a fact missed by J&J attorneys. This wasn’t about who actually owned the rights to the logo (J&J knew it belonged to the Red Cross). This was an intimidation campaign by a large company hoping to scare a non-profit into backing down. In the game of chicken, the Red Cross didn’t flinch and J&J had to deal with a monumental mess.

Well, the suit is over and the American Red Cross comes out smell like a rose. The judge initially tossed a number of J&J’s complaints and now J&J has dropped the suit realizing it wouldn’t win (either in the court of law…or public opinion). Of course, nothing like this ever goes away quietly and the J&J press release lacks any real facts (read the joint press release here). I was in Europe at the time this came out and missed it, but found the little blurb on the JNJBTW blog…where the company has been doing all of their communicating on the issue.

However, there are a couple of lessons here:



  • First, this is a case study example in how to create a PR disaster. J&J fumbled the ball on the first play (filing the lawsuit while the entire PR team was “on vacation”) and couldn’t recover. Fire the lawyers or fire the PR team, but somebody screwed up big time.

  • Second, for a company that prides itself on a credo, this was a stupid thing to do. I don’t think Johnson & Johnson will ever recover their image on this one. And the sound you hear is the goodwill of the Tylenol crisis going down the drain.


This was a costly mistake for J&J. It has tarnished the image of once good company. And rumor on the street is that J&J now needs to pay the legal bills of the American Red Cross…and pony up a substantial donation to the organization.

The lawsuit may be settled, but repairing the damage to the company has only just begun.

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