Don’t forget that Ironman is more than just a race, it’s a brand. This is a powerful force that is not often thought about. Think about how diffrent the triathlon race landscape may be( or may not be) if Ironman was a generic word used to descibe the distance of a sports most famous long race, like the marathon in running. Imagine if someone or some business owned the Marathon name and had that as a brand.
I think this is a significant question because it is a question that is up to us.
Let me explain:
IMNA has tradmarked the M-dot logo, and the Ironman name for commercial purposes.
They have not trademarked the speech act. They have not bought rights to our private conversation. We remain entirely free to use “ironman” as a predicate for any race we so choose. Graham Fraser is entirely without a right to prevent us from calling the independent ironman races “Ironmans” when we’re at the pool, at a tri club meeting, or out on a group ride.
It might only address part of the problem, but we should not be so cheap as to allow our private speech to be bought. We all recognize that swimming, biking, and running is an equivalent challenge whether done at an IMNA event or not. As such all IM distances are essentially (at their essence) the same. Consequently, our language should reflect that.
Let’s call them all ironmans. To do otherwise is to cheapen our minds and our speech.
Maybe I am wrong bu I thought M-Dot was owned by WTC and not Graham Fraser who owns IMNA. Isn’t WTC owned by some Florida opthamalogist who bought it from Silk in Kona? I know someone out there has the whole story and can hopefully expound a bit more.
Ever since I noticed the general trend on this forum, I have been trying hard to call the two irondistance races I did 'ID’s. And I still feel like I haven’t done a real ‘Ironman’. Or at least I keep on explaining to people what the difference is, of course most people (non-triathletes) don’t get that anyway…
yes, I’d much rather go back to telling people I have done two ‘ironman’ races, somehow that still sound so much better than ‘just’ irondistance…
Companies like WTC need to fight to protect their brandnames from becomming commonly used terms or they can be lost.
Examples of brand names that companies have had to work to ensure the brand name wasn’t genericized are Coke, Xerox machines, Band-aids, and Kleenex.
Asprin is a weird one since it it a trademark in some countries but not in others.
Examples of brand names that have been lost include Safety pins, Bobbie pins, Allen keys, Cellophane, Escalator, Bikini bathingsuits, Zipper fasteners, Granola cereal, Brassiere, Spandex, and Webster’s Dictionary.
Good post, I am sure that we will get some interesting responses. Dan did a piece on this very topis a while back. If you hunt around on the site I am sure that you will find it.
A sub-pet peeve of mine on this subject is people that refer to Ironman as it’s own sport - that it is some how different than swim-bik-run, triathlon. If it’s swim-bike-run, it’s triathlon and in reality Ironman is just a distance within the sport of triathlon. However, the big BUT, with that is that it is a brand name and the WTC is a private for profit business. Nothing wrong with that, it’s just an odd thing in the world of sport.
RE Post: in reality Ironman is just a distance within the sport of triathlon.
That’s changing now with the introduction of the “Ironman 70.2” branded races. WTC doesn’t have a trademark on the race distance of an ironman (anyone can put on a race with a 3.85k swim, 180k bike and 42.2k run as long as they don’t use the Ironman brandname)
The other interesting thing is I wonder why Ironman Magazine never took action against those triathlon folks that stole their name. Ironman is an old iron pumping magazine from way before those guys in lycra started running around and biking.
It will be interesting to see how this goes at a couple of different levels. In the business world this is a classic case of Brand Extention. It’s a risky proposition for the WTC, but obviously they have weighed the risks and seen that there may be a reward somewhere along the line.
The way I understand it is that WTC is owned by the Gills family. Dr. Jimmy Gills, a respected opthalmologist, IM athlete, and gifted inspirational speaker bought IM from Valerie. WTC licenses IM to IMNA which is Graham Fraser. I also understand that 70.3 is operated by WTC in-house, under the direction of Steve Meckfessel. Steve may choose to contract for RD services as he has with Tom Z. Not sure all that’s correct, but I think that’s it.
I heard once that the Ironman brand is used by WTC under licence from a comic book company and isn’t actually owned by WTC. Don’t know if that’s true or not though.
That could make the brand name pre-date the weight lifting magazine.
I am in the bodyboarding business, and a guy named Tom Morey invented the “Boogie Board” in the 70’s and a big company called Kransco bought the idea from him and trademarked the name “Boogie Board”. Now, there are dozens of companies making them, and they are generically referred to as “bodyboards”, but most people outside the sport don’t know that and call me to order a “boogie board”. The company that owns the trademark has actually used that to their advantage and really hyped the boards being called “Boogie Boards”.
You can take advantage of your brand name being used for a type of product to a point. When hyping it gets too successful you need to try to pull the brand back. A common approach is to push a product name independent of your brand. So, Xerox starts advertising “Xerox brand photocopiers”, Band-aid stopped advertising “Band-aids” and now advertises “Band-aid brand adhesive bandages”. Coke let the Cola portion of the “Coca-Cola” brand become generic so they could protect the Coke portion of the name.
If “Boogie Board” becomes too successful they might be forced to start calling their products “Boogie brand bodyboards” to protect the brand name.
Imagine if someone or some business owned the Marathon name and had that as a brand.*
actually that might not be far fetched because under EU regulations a case can be made by Greece that the area of Greece previously known as Marathon might have a legitimate right to protection of the name Marathon as it relates to the running event.
I have done both Ironman Florida and the Great Floridian. I would consider the great floridian more of an ironman than IM florida. You have done the distance, thats all that matters, not your time, fancy logos or corporate B.S. You are an Ironman!
One of the great ironies is that WTC pays Marvel Comics for the use of the Ironman name. So even at the highest level, WTC doesn’t have any ownership of the brand that they carry. If Marvel decided to charge 10X the price, they could, and WTC would be up a creek…
The M-dot logo, of course, is a WTC trademark, but not the Ironman name.
