Super-hot Desperate Housewives minx Eva Longoria was in the news last year when she was reported to have said she buys her girlfriends rabbit vibrators. In time-honoured fashion, this story has become part of Rampant Rabbit mythology – ill-informed journalists in the new Look magazine have bastardised the story saying that Eva has bought Rampant Rabbit vibrators for her friends. Of course, she hasn’t…
Here is the original Q&A quote from Rolling Stone magazine:
“Best sex you’ve had this year?
Probably with my vibrator. I own two. I have the rabbit one, and I give that as a gift all the time. To other girls. For a birthday or the like. It’s the best gift to give: an orgasm. And if I can’t do it for ya, I’ll give you the tools to succeed! I have one rabbit and a Pocket Rocket.”
Note the small ‘r’ on ‘rabbit’ and the capital ‘P’ and ‘R’ on ‘Pocket Rocket’. Why’s that important? Because Pocket Rocket is a specific brand of vibrator made by Doc Johnson – Pocket Rocket is the company’s trademark.
‘Rabbit’ is the generic term for a kind of vibrator that has a vibrating rabbit ears clitoral stimulator.
Eva didn’t refer to a particular make or brand of rabbit vibrator, she just says she’s got one. Rolling Stone has got it spot-on. Credit to them.
But in answer to a question about which vibrator to buy, the quote is rehashed in Look as:
“Follow the lead of stars like Eva Longoria and Jordan by investing the world’s best-selling vibrator, the Rampant Rabbit…”
Which is simply not what she said. So, journalists, for you one more time.
“Rampant Rabbit” is a specific product made by Ann Summers, it is a registered trademark.
“Rabbit” is a generic term for the kind of vibrator bought by Eva Longoria for her friends and as seen in Sex And The City.
Got it?
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Rampant is to Rabbit as Hoover is to vacuum cleaners. Good work I’d say.
No, not at all. “I’m off to buy a new Rampant”, “Have you done the Rampanting today?”
You could argue that Rampant is to Rabbit what Coca is to Cola, but that doesn’t make you any less wrong when you say someone’s drinking Coke if they’re drinking Pepsi. Or Virgin. Or Sainsbury’s.
This just goes to show the real lack of information about sex toys that there is available. It can honestly get tiresome when you tell people that you own an adult toy store for the first time and the first thing they ask, after saying “what?”, is if you sell the Rampant Rabbit. You must have encountered this a few time Richard?
Some even pull strange faces when you say, “No, but we sell x amount of rabbit vibrators!” – Ill informed journalists have got a lot to answer for!
Gripes aside, it was a good marketing move by Ann Summers to trademark the name in my opinion, even if they don’t enforce it as much as they could (allowing ppc bids against the term, lack of visibilty in serps, allowing urls with the term etc) however, a little birdie tells me this might change soon…
Ann Summers have been pretty smart with their PR, but not that good at following through. Just look at how they’ve failed to captitalise on their own sales hype for the Rampant Rabbit Wave Vibrator.
Poor serps, bad pricing, weak protection of the brand, they’re going to find it pretty tough to enforce now, especially with Google getting more lax on protecting brand terms.