Cat Calling Attention to Women’s Footwear?

When ideas from different realms converge in a single moment of time, a new blog post is born.

“Catcalling” — albeit a rebranded, reimagined, or redefined version of it — recently has been front and center in a political Twitter storm and remains a lightning rod in the non-stop news cycle.

So, imagine my surprise also to see the sturdy Cat construction-oriented brand calling my fashion-forward daughter to select it for her brand new, back-to-school footwear look this coming Fall:

 

Photo credit: G. Baird

This isn’t our first rodeo with Cat footwear. We previously kicked heels with my son’s steel-toe boot choice, also covering the careful timing of Cat’s truncation from the four-syllable Caterpillar.

While the brand extension from construction and earth-moving equipment to boots makes perfect sense, especially the steel-toe variety, here is the explanation for women’s casual dress shoes:

Photo credit: G. Baird

Marketers, the extension seems unnatural and forced to me, but I’d love to hear from our readers who have a stronger vantage point on whether this brand extension will work long term for Cat.

What called me to create this story for you is the hidden trademark strategy to be unearthed.

“Footwear” is one of those broad descriptions of goods that the USPTO will accept as sufficiently precise. Selecting it facilitates and better positions your brand for line extensions yet to come.

In other words, narrowly selecting “slippers” or “steel-toe boots” over “footwear,” in trademark filings may leave you boxed in when seeking to expand or extend the lines of your present brand.

Not sure when Caterpillar first introduced women’s casual dress shoes under the Cat brand, but it has owned federally-registered rights in the word CAT for “footwear” for more than a decade.

Caterpillar likely began using CAT with steel-toe boots, but given its broader registered rights, I’m guessing it didn’t lose much sleep wondering if it could grow into those broader registered rights.

In fact, this Cat has become quite active enforcing its broader rights at the USPTO’s TTAB, here.

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