Anheuser-Busch brewery in St. Louis, Missouri. Photo credit: PhilipR/Shutterstock.com

Not long after Anheuser-Busch InBev rolled out Bud Light ads featuring the now popular “Dilly Dilly” catchphrase, a Minneapolis pub began selling a “Dilly Dilly” IPA. Rather than send a typical cease and desist letter, the brewing company instead sent a town crier to deliver a more lighthearted request to keep use of the phrase to a limited run.

AB InBev's move follows a handful of recent so-called “nice” cease and desist letters. In August 2017, Netflix Inc. counsel Bryce Coughlin sent a note to an unauthorized “Stranger Things” pop-up bar, asking that the Chicago establishment restrict the run of the pop-up to the planned six weeks. “[P]lease don't make us call your mom,” Coughlin wrote.

TGI Fridays counsel took a similar approach in October of last year, and in 2012, Jack Daniel's tested a softer tone with a letter to an author whose book cover resembled one of the whiskey maker's labels.

Why does a polite, and even funny, approach to a cease and desist letter sometimes make sense? At a recent event hosted by the New York City Bar Association, Jeremy Roe, associate general counsel and head of legal for The High End, a division of AB InBev, said this tactic can not only create goodwill in the public eye, but may also lead to the desired response from alleged infringers.

The reality for in-house counsel is that these letters are often made public, and so a lighter tone when the scenario allows for it is seen by the business as an “opportunity to kind of create an extension of their brand message,” Roe said on a panel at the Jan. 19 event. And when it came to the Modist Brewing Co.'s use of “Dilly Dilly,” Roe said that because it was for a limited time, it wasn't seen as much of a risk. And it worked out— AB InBev's response led to an agreement from Modist to not use the phrase after a limited run and it was also perceived as an “olive branch,” according to Roe.

But the impact has reached beyond just the goodwill created with the Minnesota pub, Roe said. “To see us do this, it's been a surprise to a lot of people in the industry that we took this approach,” Roe explained. “So it had lasting effects beyond just this one situation. I think people may see us in a different light, so it's really worked out well for us.”

That's not to say that formal cease and desist letters aren't still a tool utilized by AB InBev's legal team. But in this particular scenario, a lighter approach made sense and was well-received, Roe said.

In general, when the company is dealing with responses to possible infringement or allegations of infringement, Roe's first move is often to coordinate with the PR team.

“We've had instances where letters that we've sent and/or letters that have been sent to us get published on social media, get a lot of attention, and then how we respond to that gets even more attention or even less attention, depending on how we address it,” he said. If responses are treated as matters that don't have to be discussed outside the legal department, he noted that the PR team and execs will understandably care when the company's name shows up in the news and they've heard nothing about the issue.

At the end of the day, “it's about reputation, making sure that the way that we respond is appropriate,” Roe said.