Chrissy Teigen still unreformed; cyberbullying and stealing ideas

[Anonymous]

Here is a report on the story without the Daily Mail's terrible journalism: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/chrissy-teigen-the-caker-pre-made-cakes-1234623139/

Rondel is pretty up front that she would not be as bothered about this if Teigen had done it without first doing the collaboration with the Caker. That's the part that takes it from "inspired by" to "stealing". Without the collaboration, Teigen could just claim she was entering a new segment of the baking/cookware/food market space and they made design choices consistent with the market and their own brand styling. But the shady thing was doing the collaboration and then deciding in the middle of it to launch a similar product line. It may or may not be legally actionable, but it's sketchy business practice.

Also, I'll note that both the Caker and Teigan's website have pulled all info about the collaboration from their websites. That indicates to me that lawyers are involved.

[Anonymous]

Pictures of baked goods on white backgrounds is nothing special, even if you add a fork

Picture of teigan and cakers boxes:



Cursory google search of cake boxes:

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will never ever not be gleeful about her downfall because of what she did to Alison Roman.

Alison Roman is a disgusting piece of shit who copies traditional ethnic recipes and calls them her own.

lol no

[Anonymous]

I also can't figure out how to embed the picture because DCUM doesn't like it but hte william sonoma georgetown cupcake mix boxes also have this look

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will never ever not be gleeful about her downfall because of what she did to Alison Roman.

Alison Roman is a disgusting piece of shit who copies traditional ethnic recipes and calls them her own.

she’s a “disgusting piece of shit” because she publishes lentil recipes?

nobody owns lentils as a concept.

I seriously hope you are trolling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pictures of baked goods on white backgrounds is nothing special, even if you add a fork

Picture of teigan and cakers boxes:



Cursory google search of cake boxes:

This actually backs up the argument for it being similar to me.

Sure, they all have white backgrounds, but if you showed me all these pictures without branding, I'd actually assume the Caker and Cravings boxes were from the same brand because they are distinctive -- the baked good is shown at the same angle from above (not straight on like all the other boxes), with a woman's hand cutting into the good or presenting it. It's also very obvious from these photos that the box size and shape is distinctive in the market, with the fatter box.

These photos make it look like copying and not simply doing industry standard things.

[Anonymous]

They’re white boxes with pictures of a pastry. Not sure it’s that unique. Someone is trying to get some notoriety.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like nobody has seen the picture of both boxes because they are nothing alike.

One is green or red on 3 sides and one is white all around.

Yes but both feature one white side that has a photograph of hand holding the product on a white background. The boxes are the same shape and size and both feature a similar details about "history of the brand." They both come with a baking utensil inside. They are not identical but a consumer might confuse the two since they are both selling packaged mixes. And that would be a problem for the Caker because they are a much small company with limited distribution. Teigen likely has a much larger reach, and if Teigen's product is sufficiently similar to confuse or "trick" consumers, it could cost the Caker opportunities and real money. This could actually threaten their business.

I think its borderline because the products do appear to different (it's not clear that Teigen's line has any cakes in it, whereas the Caker is exclusively cakes) and have very different price points (the Caker products are very high quality and have speciality ingredients, and a $25 price tag to match). But it's not accurate to say they look "nothing" alike. There is clear overlap, the biggest being the photo presentation.

You think people will be tricked even though the box is red or green and CT is white.

You think stores will shelve the cake lady’s boxes facing backwards?

Lol.

I think you could argue that a consumer familiar with the Caker mixes could pick up Teigen's product and see the extremely similar photo, same shaped box and similar details, and not realize it was a totally different product. And since Teigen's product sells for a lot less, they might think "Oh, this must be a cheaper version of that really good product I've had before -- great." The existence of the collaboration with Teigen on a Caker product could add to this confusion -- a consumer might assume that Teigen had been involved in the Caker products all along, or that Cravings had bought out the Caker, because they'd seen the promotion with the collaboration product. These confusion claims could be made even if the two products were not sold in the same stores. If the target demo is similar enough, you can argue Teigen is trying to capitalize on the brand good will that the Caker has spent years creating.

The thing about trade dress claims is that they hinge on (1) whether the product packaging will create confusion for the consumer, and (2) whether that confusion could result in the original product losing market share. The goal is to prevent people from just making a similar looking product and gaining market share based on the goodwill and strong reputation established by the original product.

The counterargument from Teigen would be that she has an established reputation in this market sector and that her branding for Cravings is recognizable enough not to cause confusion. There would be a weighing of factors to determine if that was true. I think it is to Teigen's benefit that the Cravings log is fairly prominently placed on the product. But I also think it was dumb to include such incredibly similar product photography, and that launching this product after the collaboration with the Caker was either lazy or antagonizing. If they'd never worked together, and if Teigen just changed the product art a little, this wouldn't even be an issue.

excellent analysis. this is what I come to DCUM for.

in case anyone needs the tl;dr: a colorable claim for trade dress infringement, but even if not, CT was being lazy and/or antagonizing.

[Anonymous]

Has anyone tried the Caker mixes? I’m intrigued now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone tried the Caker mixes? I’m intrigued now.

PP again. I am perusing them online and I can sort of see the idea. I’m a decent baker but I can see the value in a cake mix that has all the expensive ingredients in the box so I don’t have to buy them separately and never use the rest - cake flour, fancy cocoa, kaffir lime, almond flour, fancy chocolate, etc:

https://www.bonappetit.com/story/the-caker-box-cake-mix/amp

[Anonymous]

Those look nothing alike -- the other woman's boxes are much edgier. No writing on the face and bright colors on back. I would say CT's are very homey in comparison. They both have a photo with lots of white space on front, but that's what on trend right now. Everything from clothing to jewelry is photographed that way now.

I have zero opinion on CT in general.

[Anonymous]

There's some speculation in the twitter-verse that the Caker lady is the one who put all of this in motion just so could go viral.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pictures of baked goods on white backgrounds is nothing special, even if you add a fork

Picture of teigan and cakers boxes:



Cursory google search of cake boxes:

Can you post a picture of the front of the caked box?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's some speculation in the twitter-verse that the Caker lady is the one who put all of this in motion just so could go viral.

She is probably the one who involved lawyers first. I think she has a colorable claim, so that doesn’t bother me. I would expect that she is the one who moved first though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They’re white boxes with pictures of a pastry. Not sure it’s that unique. Someone is trying to get some notoriety.

And you don’t understand the law of trade dress.