Two weeks ago, it seemed Buc-ee’s might have finally met its match. The company that wants a monopoly over cute animal logo designs was challenged to pick on someone its own size when TV host John Oliver launched the spoof brand Buc-Off on HBO’s Last Week Tonight.
The stunt has raised thousands of dollars for Hunger Free America, but it seems Buc-ee’s attention was elsewhere. Just days later, the chain of oversized gas stations added yet another victim to its legal rampage.
The target of its rage this time is the beaver-shaped logo of small local store Beaver’s Mini Mart in a town that’s so full of beavers it’s called Beavercreek. But this time, other local business have swum into full dam-building mode. They’re flooding the zone with beaver logos of their own in what might be the biggest trolling of a corporate logo design we’ve seen.
If you’re unfamiliar with the history of Buc-ee’s bite, the Texas-based company has filed lawsuits over the years against over a dozen companies. The targets have included rival gas stations, convenience stores, dog-friendly cafes and, perhaps most bizarrely, underwear brand nut huggers, all for allegedly infringing on its logo design.
Faced with expensive legal proceedings, many give in and redesign their branding. But at the end of last month, John Oliver launched a range of Buc-off merchandise featuring a seven-foot tall squirrel called Mr. Nutterbutter (a story for another time) in an attempt to embarrass the company.
Now, Buc-ee’s is suing Beaver’s Mini Mart in Ohio, despite having only entered the state in April while the local store has been going since 2019.
Far from putting the fear of Buc-ee into other local businesses, the latest lawsuit has spurred dozens of independent stores, cafes, bookshops and more to come out in support of Beaver’s Mini Mart. They’ve been adopting temporary beaver-oriented logo designs and mascots to challenge the Texas titan.
“Come an get us Buc-ee’s. You don’t own every beaver,” the rebranded Rabbit Hole Book posts wrote on Facebook, before adding in another post: “We stand behind our Beavercreek neighbors, who have been at this location for years. The beaver looks nothing like the Buc-ee mascot. There can be no mistaking the two for each other.”
A local bakery even began selling “solidarity cookies” with icing that read “shop local, protect your beaver”.
(Image credit: WKEF)
According to Huber Heights mayor Jeff Gore, Buc-ee’s co-founder and CEO Arch Aplin says the company lodged its lawsuit because Beaver’s Mini Mart filed a request for a trademark in the state, which he says violates Buc-ee’s own trademark.
However, as Oliver notes in an update on this week’s episode of Last Week Tonight (below), beavers are everywhere in Beavercreek. There’s even a school that has a mascot called Bucky the Beaver.
I know what you’re thinking, and yes, t does seem that some of the local businesses in question may have resorted to AI image generation rather than hiring a designer to craft their spoof beaver logos. Could this be the one situation where AI logo generation might be tolerable?
Will Buc-ee sue every business in Beavercreek? Many of those responding to the design controversy could have a decent defence of parody since the logos aren’t intended to as permanent brand identities (also see the Patagonia logo design lawsuit controversy).
