Mucking out the copycat brands

Remember the row between rich brand owners and wealthy retailers accused of producing “copycat” products? It rumbled on for most of 1994 until a ceasefire was agreed.

But one member of the British Producers & Brand Owners Group, Gillette, has taken justice into its own hands. In a series of dawn raids, it netted 85,000 counterfeit Parker and Waterman pens – if genuine they would have been worth 685,000. The pens were crushed and dumped in the aptly-named Mucking Fields in Essex.

This was a clear case of illegal counterfeiting, but it must have sparked fantasies among other BPBOG members about dawn raids on certain retailers. Given a free rein, Mucking Fields could become home to “copycat” brands ranging from coffee to shampoo.