NEW YORK & AMSTERDAM--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Lemonade, the insurance company powered by AI and behavioral economics, today announced it is seeking to invalidate Deutsche Telekom’s claim to exclusive rights over the color pink.

Following Lemonade’s June 2019 launch in Germany, Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile’s parent company) proclaimed that its dominion over the color pink extended to insurance, and demanded Lemonade abandon its use of pink entirely. Deutsche Telekom obtained a preliminary injunction instructing Lemonade to remove the offending color from all its German assets. The proceedings were ‘ex parte’, meaning that Lemonade has not yet had its day in court. An earlier ‘magenta injunction’, against Swedish telecommunications company Telia, was overturned by a Danish court, and Deutsche Telekom was made to pay costs when it lost at trial1.

Lemonade has been using pink prominently and proudly since its inception in 2015, and its Instagram campaign, in which hundreds of everyday objects are dunked into pink paint, has been viewed 18 million times in recent months. When it comes to insurance, probably no brand in the world is more closely connected with the color pink than Lemonade. Deutsche Telekom, in contrast, is not even licensed to conduct business in this regulated industry – so the two companies are not competitive in any way.

“In the German telecommunications industry, Deutsche Telekom is associated with a particular shade of pink it calls “magenta”, though for years it has tried to take a wide range of pinks away from businesses across multiple industries and countries,” said Daniel Schreiber, CEO and cofounder, Lemonade. “Deutsche Telekom sought to banish the use of pink from a technology blog in the US2, an aspiring watchmaker seeking crowd-funding on Indiegogo3, an invoice processor in Holland4, a nine person IT shop in England5, and now, it’s claiming it owns pink in the insurance industry, too. If some brainiac at Deutsche Telekom had invented the color, their possessiveness would make sense. Absent that, the company’s actions just smack of corporate bully tactics, where legions of lawyers attempt to hog natural resources – in this case a primary color - that rightfully belong to everyone.”

In deference to the court, Lemonade temporarily made the color changes it ordered in Germany. In defiance of Deutsche Telekom, Lemonade refused to sign the company’s agreement, choosing instead to challenge its hegemony over pink in all jurisdictions.

“Deutsche Telekom tried to use the injunction to strong arm us into signing away our right to use the color pink anywhere in the world, as well as our right to challenge its supposed ownership of pink everywhere,” said Shai Wininger, COO and co-founder, Lemonade. “At first we thought DT couldn’t be serious: monopolizing all the pink in the world sounds like something a cartoon villain would do in a Disney epic. But it was serious. It’s the move of a big corporation that has run out of good ideas.”

Schreiber added: “Think about it: your printer has but 3 colors - cyan, yellow and magenta. The idea that Deutsche Telekom owns magenta in all its variations, across industries and countries, seems like a proposition worth challenging. We’re not sure how this will end, but we’ll try to have some fun along the way. As Miley Cyrus said, ‘pink isn’t just a color, it’s an attitude.’”

Follow the developments on social media: #FreeThePink

About Lemonade

Lemonade offers homeowners and renters insurance in the United States, and contents and liability insurance in Germany, through its full-stack insurance carriers. Powered by artificial intelligence and behavioral economics, Lemonade replaces brokers and bureaucracy with bots and machine learning, aiming for zero paperwork and instant everything. A Certified B-Corp, Lemonade gives underwriting profits to nonprofits selected by its community during its annual Giveback.

Lemonade is currently available for most of the United States and Germany, and continues to expand globally.

Stay in touch at @lemonade_inc or www.facebook.com/lemonade

Footnotes: