Too many herds in the field?
This morning I woke up to an email from someone who a Google search tells me is well known in US ad circles, informing me, “you are not Mark Earls” (I’m not?) and telling me I was “infringing on his brand…stop it.”
Who is Mark Earls? For those of you that don’t know (plenty do but I didn’t until just over a year ago), he has authored a book called Herd, maintains a typepad blog of the same name and is active on the marketing speaker circuit.
Being told I was ripping off someone’s brand pissed me off as that’s kind of not how I work. But to avoid any doubt, here’s what I’ve done about it:
First of all why is this blog called News from the Herd? Pretty simple really: The agency I work for is called Cow and we once used to have a division called Herd. The division’s gone for reasons I won’t bore you with, but rather than create a new one from scratch, I kept the blog of the same name going.
Now I’m clearly not going to change the name of this site, but I’m also most definitely not out to impersonate anyone.
So after a separate email conversation with fellow blogger Gareth Kay – I’ve done the following:
On the right hand side under ‘what’s happening here’, you’ll see a link telling people where to go if they’ve come here hoping to find a marketing author.
If you want Mark’s site that’s your link. I’ll keep it up for August and if my site logs show there are a lot of click throughs and people really have been confused, I’ll keep it up after that.
End of story.
Now. I’m going to order Mark Earls’ book from Amazon to see what all the fuss is about. It will be much easier to copy chapters wholesale that way anyway.
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Thanks for the kind words Anthony.
I am aware that Mark thinks that I get traffic meant for him, which is why I put up the link directing anyone who is lost.
I've just checked Get Clicky (which I use for metrics) and over the past 30 days five people have clicked through, so a handful are confused (or perhaps curious), but we are certainly not talking about huge numbers.
Also applying the RSS subscriber test I talked about in my last comment, I've had no drop off in numbers, indeed there has been a slight increase.
As a result, as far as I am concerned, this case is now well and truly closed!
I assume nothing more has happened regarding this risible accusation, Dirk?
And did Earls ever contact you himself? For that matter, has he acknowledged your commendable link to his website for anyone not sharp enough to realise they'd come to the wrong place, or indeed done you the same courtesy?
I think every which way it'd be laughed out of court for the feeble and groundless accusation it is.
I came across the Cow website and this blog quite recently (while searching for a book on influencing behaviour, OBVIOUSLY), and thoroughly enjoy the read, so
keep up the good work…
Hi Ben, thanks for the comment.
In fact I got another email from someone the other day urging me to change the name of the blog to avoid further charges of theft towards me and disappointment for readers when they realised they'd been hood winked.
Not something I'm going to do lightly, but what I did agree to do was to look at the numbers.
If I'd attracted people here by some massive con trick, then surely once they'd read this post and realised I wasn't the person behind the 'herd' movement and book, they would vote with their feet and leave.
In fact on Sunday when I published this post I had 967 RSS subscribers and today I have 992, so a very small increase.
As a result, I think the conclusion is that the calls I've had for me to remove the 'h' name from this blog are noisy, but hardly representative and I am hoping that is the end of it!
Just read this blog…what happened in the end? It sounds like the other Herd is being unreasonable…probably because they have a weak case!
Thanks Andy, I really wasn't aware of all those Herd examples!
It just makes me wonder if, when he chose the name for his books he took the time to consider the considerable length of time that http://www.wearetheherd.com/ has existed for (Jan 2007)
or perhaps the Ubuntu operating system, Herd (which, in one form or another has existed since July 2006)?
or the rock band, with four releases under their belts? who in fact, joint Myspace in 2005 (and one would be inclined to think that they existed prior to creating a Myspace account).
Or, as seeding is such a big part of this industry (I jest, an altogether different type of seeding) http://www.herdseeder.com/
and finally, what about the Hermon, Edwards, Russell and DeKalb community website: http://www.herd.org/
That's the problem with taking a name that is somewhat affiliated to a behavioural pattern associated with a common grazing animal, other people are aware of them.
If the similarities are too close then perhaps this gentleman could speak to some scientists or about renaming herding as an animalistic behaviour. I'd hate to think that someone, somewhere was thinking of myself as a bovine (or even a market speculator).
Thanks Anon. To take the link baiting point first.
Had this just been a one-off I'd have thought little more of it.
And that's what I did over a year ago when I received similar accusations by email – I was bemused more than anything else.
It's only because this still seems to be doing the rounds that I wanted to close it down once and for all. You know, IP theft not being a great thing to be accused of in our line of work, and all that.
Primary school writing….well, I maintain this blog around my day job and when I have time. For Mark Earls it IS his day job!
As a result, some of my posts are probably fillers. Others do seem to be reasonably well received.
At the end of the day though, it's your choice to come here. If you don't like what you see, well, don't.
Given some of the elementary school posts on here, you don't need to worry about being mistaken for Mark Earls.
Part of me wonders whether this post is actually an attempt to ride on his coat tails. Nice try.
@andrew – Yes I started this blog in early to mid 2007, not long after Mark Earls published his book.
So much as I like to spot winners, you are right in that the assumption that seems to be being made – that I thought 'Herd' was going to be big – gives me a bit too much credit!
@ben – indeed, and I think the question is why would I even copy someone in such a blatant way.
With 15+ years agency experience the last thing I am really going to do is to wreck my reputation by stealing someone else's
Perhaps the Herd complainer should trademark "Herd." I ran a search on the U.S. trademark database here and while numerous variations of herd come up — "dataherd," "go herd," "healthy herd," — herd itself is unregistered.
I'm not a lawyer, but since your blog is titled "This Is Herd" it seems you have a distinct, defensible title anyway. The trademark search engine TESS shows scores of variations of herd being used.
Lots of room on the field, even if the other guy is having a cow.
I think it's also worth saying that your first blog post here seems to be dated Jan 2006 and Amazon tells me there's one hardback edition of Herd published in Jan 2007.
Okay – the next post seems to be from 2007 but still fairly close to Herb's publication date. Hardly enough time for you to wait and see Herd would become a big seller or not.