Men In Leotards Don’t Drink Wine…They Whine.
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Doesn't THIS fall into the "Thank-You-Lord-For-Making-Me-The-Martyr" category of public relations?
Here we have a small, hardworking wine education organization, The Wine School of Philadelphia, being put upon by none other than the bulky, billion dollar World Wrestling Entertainment organization because the wine school uses the term "Smackdown" to describe an event at their school. The Men-in-Leotards insist the Philly Wine School stop using the term "Sommelier Smackdown" because it harms the WWE and their promotion of big men in leotards.
The upshot? The Wine School of Philadelphia
hia has gotten tons of free media covering the issue. You just can't pay for this kind of publicity. Well, that's not true. You can, the I doubt Keith Wallace, owner of the school, could afford the millions of dollars it would take to actually buy this kind of coverage.
It makes me back to when I was working with Clos Pegase Winery in the early 1990s when the Federal Government banned one of their art labels for being obscene. A near abstract portrait on the label happen to disclose that the portrait was of a naked man—yeah, if you tilted your head sideways and squinted you could see the penis. The declaration by the Feds was Manna from Heaven as far as publicity and visibility for the winery is concerned.
As he should, Wallace is having fun with this silly bit of lawyering on the part of the WWE's retinue of retainer lawyers:
"Why is WWE on the warpath? It is pretty silly. They claim they own
the term “Smackdown”, and are demanding I stop using it. Problem is,
to have a case, they would need to prove they have protected that term
from becoming a generic term. By my back-of-the-envelope calculation,
to make that claim stick, they would have to file cease-and-desist
orders against 2 million websites, one book publisher, one video
distributor, two universities, and three charities.
Vince, instead of hiding behind your lawyers like a little girl, why
don’t you grow some stones and challenge me face-to-face? Better yet,
how about you send your boy Chris Jerico to Philly.
Unfortunately, I won’t be available for a wrestle match (my shoulder is gimpy from opening all those wine bottles), but Brian Freedman is happy to take my place. Be warned: He is one-hundred-and-twenty
pounds of pure intellectual fury. Be afraid, Vince, be very afraid.
Of course it's not all funny. Wallace is likely to have to spend a decent amount of money and time to defend himself. At some point he'll have to decide if the cost of defending himself is worth the outcome. If it's not, then what he should do is milk this for everything he can until it's time to call the Sommelier Smackdown something else, like "The Sommeliers In Leotards Taste Off". (And by the way, Keith, why haven't you found two sommeliers to agree to dress up in crazy, skin tight leotards who will throw chairs around the room while they pretend to taste wine and pair them with food?)
The point of course is that you need to be prepared to take advantage of all situations, even difficult ones like this. Always ask if there's a simple way to turn a problem into an advantage.
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That’s a great picture of Jack Nicholson in leotards with his tongue sticking out. He must have been a lot younger when he posed for it. I knew Jack was a sports fan, but I was not aware that his interests went all the way to WWE.
Hey Tom,
Perhaps you can be the first to don some skin tight leotards next time you’re in Phily – We’d love to have you smacking down with that little intellectual ball of fury or even Keith himself!
Publicity comes in the most interesting forms.