Aldi strikes again with its release of rose wine ‘Rosalie’, with customers having reportedly spotted a resemblance between Aldi’s new product and Kylie Minogue’s bestselling sparkling rose wine. Beyond Corporate’s Molly Hackett looks at Aldi’s history of developing products with a look that feels similar, and explains what we might expect to see from Kylie’s legal team.
The key similarity to the labels is the stylised nature of the product names, each using a ‘signature style’ mark on the bottle with a white background featured on the label. The singer has four registered trade marks in the UK which are affiliated with the wine collection; two of which are for Kylie’s name and the others being for the label design in question, albeit the registrations show a frosted pattern bottle, a feature that is not in contention here.
If action is taken by Kylie, it is likely that claims for passing off, copyright infringement and, possibly, trade mark infringement will be considered. While the appearance and overall impression of the products are similar, the fact that the design for the label is simplistic in nature may not go in Kylie’s favour and the distinctiveness of the mark may be called into question. Further, Aldi has established a reputation for offering products that sail close to the wind when it comes to other brand’s intellectual property rights. In the recent and controversial case between Aldi and Thatchers, no misrepresentation by Aldi was found as the judge ruled that consumers would not believe that an Aldi product is that of the brand’s – a similar finding could be established in this case. A valid argument has been raised as to whether this ruling will allow Aldi to continue crossing the boundary when benchmarking its products, as well as other retailers who adopt this approach.
Having entered the wine industry in 2020, Kylie has been successful with her collection and UK sales have been reported at approximately £34 million a year. As a result, and especially given that the Aldi product competitively undercuts the price of Kylie’s product by 51 pence, it is likely that Kylie’s legal team will be considering and advising the singer on the potential loss of revenue and detrimental impact to the brand across the UK. Considering Aldi’s recent success in the courts with Thatchers as well as M&S, it will be interesting to see what approach Kylie’s legal team will take.
