Chrissy Teigen still unreformed; cyberbullying and stealing ideas

[Anonymous]

OP - you linked a DAILY MAIL article. They pay people for stories. NZ lady just wanted a payday. The boxes don't look alike at all. OMG, a piece of cake with a spatula. that's literally the only similarity. Grow up.

[Anonymous]

NP. They look pretty alike to me.

[Anonymous]

I don't care about Chrissy Teigen either way, but I'm surprised people actually take The Daily Mail serious. You know this is a tabloid, right?

[Anonymous]

The boxes look similar and she also copied this lady’s designs after collaborating with her.

[Anonymous]

They’re not even direct competitors this is weird. Tiegan isn’t even doing cake. It’s banana bread, cookies, and pancakes. She is also working at an 8/10 dollar price point instead of a $25 price point so I don’t really get it.

[Anonymous]

They are not similar other than they both have pictures of different baked goods. I think most cake mix boxes have a picture.
This is not going to have legs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The boxes look similar and she also copied this lady’s designs after collaborating with her.

OP—stop sockpuppeting. You weird obsession with Teigan is concerning.

[Anonymous]

Both mixes are being produced and sold under Teigan’s brand “craving”. Of course the packaging is similar, just like all the varieties of Duncan Hines cake mixes are similar except for the photo of the final product. You guys are unbelievably gullible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Both mixes are being produced and sold under Teigan’s brand “craving”. Of course the packaging is similar, just like all the varieties of Duncan Hines cake mixes are similar except for the photo of the final product. You guys are unbelievably gullible.

Ok, I think this is dumb click bait and the boxes aren’t that similar, but… that’s not true? Like at all?

The Caker mixes have been around for a while and it’s a totally different company that Teigan has nothing to do with. It was based in New Zealand and had small distribution, in part because they made it as a very high end product with expensive ingredients and it cost $25/box.

THEN the Caker did a collaboration with Teigen for one product (the carrot cake). Teigen (and John Legend, who appeared in the promotional material) were likely paid for this collab.

And now Teigen is launching her own mixes through Cravings, her brand, which has not previously produced them. Teigen’s product is a bit different— more general baking mixes instead of fancy cakes, and being sold at a very different price point (so it can be sold at regular grocery stores and have much wider distribution).

I think the main similarities are the shape of the boxes and some of the design elements. I do think it’s likely Teigen’s team was inspired by the Caker’s very good product packaging design because that box shape is unusual (fatter than a typical box mix) and the photography and art design does have some similarities. But I think this would be unlikely to hold up to a trade dress claim because the products are sufficiently different, and the target audience quite different.

But, yeah, Teigen doesn’t produce the Caker’s mixes and actually the fact that you thought they did would be something the Caker could use in a claim to argue that Teigen is creating brand confusion.

[Anonymous]

The style looks similar with white background, but you can't trademark that. The lady will lose if she tries to take CT to court.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't care about Chrissy Teigen either way, but I'm surprised people actually take The Daily Mail serious. You know this is a tabloid, right?

The included tweets from the women who accused Teigen of copying here. The Daily Mail is ridiculous, but more reputable publications have written articles based on the same thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The style looks similar with white background, but you can't trademark that. The lady will lose if she tries to take CT to court.

The picture is the front of CT box and the back of hers.

The front of her box is all green.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The style looks similar with white background, but you can't trademark that. The lady will lose if she tries to take CT to court.

I think she might have a case. Looking at cake mix boxes, you won't find any others with white backgrounds with a hand cutting or serving the product. I think that if Makers Mark can get trademark protection for a red wax seal, it's not so obvious that this claim is frivolous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The style looks similar with white background, but you can't trademark that. The lady will lose if she tries to take CT to court.

You actually can trademark packaging if it is distinct enough. It’s called trade dress. Many registered trademarks cover packaging and a uniquely shaped box with distinctively styled photography could be covered. If you read the allegations, one of the Caker’s complaints is that her packaging also includes a “story of the brand” in a specific place snd she feels Teigen has copied that, as well as something distinctive about the directions (I’m less clear on that). Also, did someone note that both packages include a spatula? That’s an unusual element that could potentially contribute to a claim.

I was originally skeptical but looking at the details, I actually do think there might be an argument here. I think one of the biggest factors is that Teigen did the collaboration with the Caker before launching her product, so it would be impossible to argue that Teigen was unaware of the Caker or that similarities are coincidental. Teigen had intimate familiarity with the product. It does look like she may have intentionally copied the packaging.

[Anonymous]

If they hadn’t collaborated together I’d think it was just a coincidence. That style of packaging is everywhere nowadays. But since they did work together, I think it’s likely Caker’s boxes were used as inspiration.

Bigger question is - did CT tell her design team to copy them, or did design team do it on their own? I don’t think she’s at fault if a random designer is to blame.