Men on The White Lotus went to Duke. The US university is not happy

The old ad-industry adage says there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but some brands have in fact suffered as a result of unfortunate product placement. Peloton Interactive, the maker of the popular home fitness machine, had to resort to damage control after a character in And Just Like That…, also on HBO, died after exercising on a Peloton machine. The company said at the time that while it approved of the use of its bike in the show, it didn’t realise the context of the storyline.

In The White Lotus, Duke isn’t necessarily painted in the most flattering light. Patrick Schwarzenegger plays Saxon, the smug, playboy eldest son of the Ratliff family who is a recent Duke graduate now working for his dad. His sister, a peace-seeking Buddhist, attends the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke’s main rival.

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“Duke appreciates artistic expression and creative storytelling, but characters prominently wearing apparel bearing Duke’s federally registered trademarks creates confusion and mistakenly suggests an endorsement or affiliation where none exists,” Tramble said.

Scott Landsbaum, an intellectual property business attorney, said it was common for companies and brands to take issue with negative portrayals in film and television, but there was not much they could do.

“You get quite a lot of protection under the First Amendment for artistic endeavours as long as you’re not doing something that would be considered defamatory,” he said. Simply showing some copyrighted work on a T-shirt is fair use, he added.

Often Hollywood does ask permission to use certain products and brands on-screen, since production companies want to avoid bad press, according to Landsbaum. But in the event that a company is surprised by a negative depiction, he said it might be better to stay silent.

“Complaining about it just draws more attention to it,” he said.

Bloomberg

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