Opinion
Lodha vs Lodha: Why family names as brand names are always tough to disentangle
Summary
- Abhishek Lodha and Abhinandan Lodha are feuding over the ‘Lodha’ brand name, which is also their family name. Owning ‘Lodha’, a common Marwari surname, as his proprietorial brand name will be tough for Abhishek. Any Lodha anywhere, not just brother Abhinandan, can theoretically lay claim to it.
Honest to God, Leo Tolstoy was a hundred percent on-target when he wrote in Anna Karenina that “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
Abhishek Lodha and Abhinandan Lodha are at loggerheads over the ‘Lodha’ brand name, which is also their family name—a brand name that has ostensibly seen ₹1,700 crore invested in its build-up in the past decade alone.
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Much has been written on the Lodha versus Lodha brand brawl in the past few days. Such family disputes are not new. Munjals representing various branches of the family are battling over the ‘Hero’ brand name, which they have together owned since the 1950s, for the past few years. The various Kirloskars are at war over their namesake brand. The Srinivasans of TVS, though, seem to have had a sensible family MoU that has averted any dirty laundry being washed in public.
Family, names as brand names are always tougher to disentangle. But there are name situations that are even tougher. The Oberoi family of Oberoi Hotels is different from realtor Vikas (Vicky) Oberoi’s. Yet, both have used the Oberoi brand name in different domains for years and years. Both families are not even related to each other. Yet, each has a legitimate claim to the surname Oberoi.
Back in the day when trademarks, copyrights and brand IP (intellectual property) were still not big issues, each of the Oberois invested in, and grew their own, ‘Oberoi’ brand. Going forward, what happens if Oberoi Hotels decides to launch luxury apartments and call them Oberoi? Or if Vicky Oberoi decides to diversify into luxury hotels and call them Oberoi?
Let us look at this family name issue in other industries. Take Bollywood. Prithviraj Kapoor was the patriarch of the Kapoor family. But the Kapoor brand actually started to gain aura with Raj Kapoor. Shammi Kapoor and then Shashi added to its traction. The next generation of the Kapoors—Randhir, Rishi, Kunal, Karan, Sanjana—all gained from the Kapoor franchise. And then, of course, Karisma, Kareena and Ranbir have further built on the inheritance.
But way back in the mid ’60s, a newcomer called Jitender Kapoor shied away from the already famous Kapoor tag and preferred to call himself just Jeetendra because it would have clashed with the goodwill of the ‘original’ Kapoors. The twist in the tale actually came in the ’80s when one Anil Kapoor, also with Kapoor as his family name, gained big-ticket success. With his rise to fame, Boney Kapoor and Sanjay Kapoor too became well known. And in this current generation, Sonam Kapoor and Arjun Kapoor have kept the family ‘Kapoor’ tradition alive. But what the growing tribe of the various Kapoors did not perhaps bargain for was the emergence of another Kapoor variant—Kapur—Aditya Roy Kapur and brothers Siddharth and Kunaal.
And to add to the confusion, there is now the sultry Shraddha Kapoor. And a poor someone called Ram Kapoor. Should Prithviraj Kapoor, 75 years ago, have trademarked the Kapoor name as the ‘original’ and ‘only’ Kapoor?! More importantly, could he have been allowed to trademark it only for his tinsel town family that would exclude all other Kapoor wannabes? Improbable, if not impossible.
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Back to the Lodha brothers. Sure, the case is in court. And there may be injunctions. And restraint orders. But a final verdict may take years coming. Owning ‘Lodha’, a common Marwari surname, as his proprietorial brand name will be tough for Abhishek. Any Lodha anywhere, not just brother Abhinandan, can theoretically lay claim to it. Look at the Rahejas—there is K. Raheja, V. Raheja, S. Raheja, Raheja Universal, Raheja Developers—they all coexist in the real estate market. Granted that each of them would love to be unique and have an identity that is not likely to be confused with another Raheja, but then they all seem to have reconciled to the reality.
The problem really is not just with family names. Companies that had names of cities as their brand name too could never ‘own’ their brand name. Gwalior Suitings had to rechristen as Grasim; Bhilwara Synthetics Ltd had to rename itself as BSL, and New Delhi Television changed to NDTV. Even descriptors like ‘National’ cannot be ‘owned’. The National Institute of Information Technology had to call itself NIIT. Tough, isn’t it?
Dr Sandeep Goyal is chairman of Rediffusion.
