Cease and Desist

One of our favorite catalog retailers, Thinkgeek, had a parody add in their April catalog for Canned Unicorn Meat. It was an April Fool’s joke that they touted as the “new white meat.” While they didn’t expect anyone to take it seriously, they got a 12-page cease and desist letter from the National Pork Board because their ad was a little too close to “the other white meat,” which is owned by the NPB. It’s a hilarious and embarrassing issue, and my favorite news story in a long time.





From the Thinkgeek website:

We'd like to publicly apologize to the NPB for the confusion over unicorn and pork--and for their awkward extended pause on the phone after we had explained our unicorn meat doesn't actually exist. From our press release…

Geeknet Apologizes to National Pork Board for Unicorn Meat Confusion

'New white meat' from sparkly unicorns not meant to replace pork-based diets

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California, June 21, 2010, Geeknet, Inc. (NASDAQ: LNUX), the online network for the global geek community, announces its public apology to the National Pork Board for unintended confusion surrounding unicorn meat versus pork.

Recently, the National Pork Board issued a "cease and desist" warning to ThinkGeek, a Geeknet company and the premier retailer for the global geek community, regarding its April 1 product launch of canned unicorn meat, which can be seen at http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/looflirpa/.

"It was never our intention to cause a national crisis and misguide American citizens regarding the differences between the pig and the unicorn," said Scott Kauffman, President and CEO of Geeknet. "In fact, ThinkGeek's canned unicorn meat is sparkly, a bit red, and not approved by any government entity."

"Ironically, other than the Pork Board, we do more than anybody else to promote pig consumption among geeks," Kauffman said. Constantly working to encourage a "passion for pork", ThinkGeek offers more than 15 different pork-inspired products including: Bacon Soap, Bacon Lip Balm, Bacon Mints, MMMMVelopes (bacon-flavored envelopes) and BaconPop Flavored Popcorn.

To make good on its apology to the Pork Board, ThinkGeek is extending a special discount to everyone offended by the portrayal of Unicorn Meat as "the new white meat." For a limited time, visitors to ThinkGeek.com can take $10 off any order of $40 or more by using the code PORKBOARD at checkout. The discount applies to merchandise totals and excludes shipping charges. The coupon is good until 6/30/2010 at 11:59PM ET.

Canned unicorn meat and products from other mythical, virtual and fictional characters, as well as tangible products, can be found at thinkgeek.com.


Now, what else can you say to that?