Have you thought about trying to incorporate some bits and pieces of pop culture into your business? Admittedly, this is going to be easier for some types of businesses to do than it is for others, and you will have to be careful about which aspects of pop culture you might want to try to utilize. However, when you do it right, it really can be a success.
How to Choose What to Use
When you are choosing what you want to use from pop culture with your business, you need to make sure that you are not using any copyrighted or trademarked material. For example, you can’t use characters from Twilight on your graphic prints that you are creating and selling. However, you could have a generic vampire. The zombie craze is another thing that many companies – even the Center for Disease Control – happen to be using. When you use pop culture in your business, it really can have a remarkable effect.
You have to make sure that whatever form of pop culture you want to embrace with your business fits in line with what you do and what you offer. It might not be the right solution for all types of business, and therefore you do not want to force it.
What about Parody?
Of course, some of you out there are thinking about the parody laws right now. If you are using something as a parody, such as what South Park does all the time, then you should be able to sell it, right? While that might be true in some cases, the law can get a bit muddled, and that means that it is going to be in your best interest to speak with a lawyer about anything that you might want to use in a parodied form. It is always better to be safe than sorry and end up having Disney breathe down your neck!
One of the things that you might want to consider doing to avoid trouble is trying to license some of the pop culture icons or characters for use with your business. If you are making products, you will often have to have mock samples ready to show, since most intellectual property owners are not going to want to have their creations shown in a negative light.
Have you thought of any ways that you might be able to use some aspect of pop culture in your business, either as a product or as promotion?
