Chooseco Sues Over Jeep Ad

by Rachel Deahl, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 3/29/2007

A Vermont publisher is trying to put the brakes on a Daimler Chrysler ad campaign. Chooseco LLC, the company behind the book series Choose Your Own Adventure, filed a trademark infringement lawsuit on Tuesday against the automotive giant, claiming its brand was invoked without permission for an ad campaign around the Jeep Patriot. The campaign in question was launched on March 13 and featured TV, print and online spots, some with the tagline 'Choose Your Adventure.'

Daimler Chrysler, attempting to attract a younger audience for the Patriot (which retails for just under $15,000), incorporated a number of interactive elements into the campaign, including a Web film at www.patriotadventure.com called The Way Beyond Trail. The online film, which follows three friends on an adventure in their Patriot, allows Web surfers to, according to the site's instructions, "make the decisions" in a story line that they themselves can script, one with "over 40 scenes and dozens of dead ends."

Chooseco, whose filing also charged Daimler Chrysler's ad partners Organic and Marvel Entertainment asserts that the ads directly steal from the Choose Your Own Adventure line's premise, one in which readers develop their own story line from myriad print options. The more than 20-year-old series, according to Chooseco publisher Shannon Gilligan "maintains a large fan base of original readers who are now in the exact demographic Jeep targets."

While Chooseco said that attempts to make Chrysler and its partners "cease and desist" with the infringement were ignored, a Chrysler spokesperson told PW Daily he was "shocked" about the filing. "We were in negotiations with them and expecting to be able to come to an amicable settlement," he said, adding that the car company is continuing to try and settle the matter.

Gilligan responded that Chooseco has been in this situation before, noting that the company filed a similar suit against Nestlé and won. "We learned they will slow walk you," she said. When asked about the impetus behind the suit, Gilligan said the phrase "choose your own adventure" has become almost synonymous with interactive entertainment, but in this instance, it was a "clear case of Jeep trying to piggyback on the Choose Your Own Adventure brand to sell Jeeps."

Chooseco, which released its first paperbacks in the Choose Your Own Adventure series in 1979, recently reissued the line.