Excite threatens to sue New Labour over logo

Excite has confirmed it is considering taking legal action against New Labour over the political party's new logo.

Labour released the new logo last week to feature on the party's merchandise. It consists of a stick man with a loveheart top - it supposed to woo the young and combine funkiness with an election cross with a love heart and a stick man. (Exciting, isn't it?)

Of course, it got an old-fashioned kicking by the press - looks like an office doodle, can be split up to spell "evil" - but if Excite has its way, Labour may have to ditch the entire thing. As you'll probably be aware, Excite's logo also has a stick man, but instead of a loveheart, it has a sorta crown effect in red (both logos are below, so don't worry about this haphazard description).

Excite marketing director Lorraine Thomson said: "We live and die by our brand image. We are taking this seriously. A cross shape appears in both logos and Lavbour's also features our coporate colours of red and black. We're just amazed and genuinely sorry that Labour couldn't think up something of their own."

A Labour spokesman tried to persuade us that the logo wasn't actually a new logo (?!) and Excite's threat was just a publicity stunt. That it may be but Excite has a point. Labour would also have a hard time claiming it wasn't aware of the Excite logo because it tries to sell itself as the Internet party.

Of course, nothing will really happen, but it does open Labour to accusations that it lacks imagination and takes far more from the Internet than it can hope to give it. ®