Wegmans, the Rochester, N.Y.-based grocery giant, is being sued by pharmacy Walgreens. The Democrat and Chronicle reports that Walgreens is charging that the Wegmans logo is too similar to its own branding:
Wegmans said they used the logo style decades ago, and resurrected it recently. “We were surprised to learn of this lawsuit, since Walgreens did not contact us with any concerns prior to filing it,” said Jeanne Colleluori, Wegmans spokeswoman.
Since Drug Store News posted this story on November 1, several outlets have picked it up, and naturally the Twitterverse is outraged. Julia Ciesla Hanley (@muzenews) offers this advice to Walgreens:
“Are you kidding? Suck it up Walgreens!”
Rich S (@DamnedFacts) points us to this link showing Wegmans logos throughout history. In response @michaelasmith writes:
“Yeah, someone at Walspleen's ought to get peer-facepalmed.”
Pete Shelly uses the suit as a follow Friday suggestion AND to create a new hashtag meme:
#FF If you like awesome supermarkets and freedom, you'll like @Wegmans. But you won't like @Walgreens #TeamWegmans
(As of this writing, #TeamWegmans seems to consist of just Pete and one other person, but they’re beating the nobody that #TeamWalgreens is fielding.)
Other Twitterati are outraged on a design level. David Meyer (@dameyer) writes:
“Walgreens is suing Wegmans over the use of a single letter in their wordmark? I don't see it.”
@PLZfollow suggests that Walgreens take it up with the Washington Nationals instead. He/she has a point – the Nats logo is pretty similar to both of the Ws in question.
Chad Taggart (@Chadius08) suggests that Walgreens “should also sue Brush Script Std and the color red.”
But overwhelming the sentiment seems to be “WTF” – the incident has even made Reddit’s “WTF” Twitter feed (@wtfreddit).
