A three-year-old luxury activewear retailer, LNDR, recently registered their biggest achievement since its establishment back in 2015, as it won a legal battle over its name from the sportswear behemoth Nike.
The dispute was that Nike launched a campaign earlier this year which was called “Nothing Beats a Londoner.”The LDNR brand successfully marked out in court that the use of ‘LNDR’ at the end of Nike’s social media, live events, giveaways and in-store displays throughout the campaign and that might create a confusion in the audience’s minds that LNDR is Nike’s product.
The sportswear giant’s campaign included a lot of local celebrities; Mo Farah, Harry Kane, Eden Hazard, Skepta, Dina Asher-Smith and Gareth Southgate, and was strategically planned to tap the region’s audience targeting the age bracket of 16 – 24 years.
In a statement issued, Joanna Turner, co-founder, East London-based LNDR, said that Nike’s campaign gained a huge amount of exposure very quickly. For us, it was telling the people that ‘LDNR’ was either Nike’s subsidiary or that there was a partnership between the two brands. “We believed that there was no option, but to protect our brand and identity, and the trademarks that support them, which is key to our constant growth,” Joanna added.
Notably, LNDR’s representative Arty Rajendra affirmed that the company has a growing reputation and as a premium label, it could not sit by and let Nike damage it.
The conclusion from the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court cited that Nike cannot use the term ‘LNDR’ again for any of its campaigns. Joanna further said that the company is relieved that the judges saw the things the same way as we did and ruled the judgement in LNDR’s favor.
However, Nike is yet to respond whether it will challenge the decision of high court further or not, any update on the same will be shared when available.
