In a landmark decision, the Australian Commercial Practices Court today
ruled that Toyota is no longer allowed to run its advertising campaign
based on the word "Bugger".
Explained Court spokesman Loof Lirpa, "Some time ago Microsoft took out an
injunction against the use of the word 'Bugger' in Toyota's ad. It was
argued that 'Bugger' had been associated with Windows far longer and far
more deeply than with Toyota's utes."
Lirpa went on to suggest that every Windows user in the world uses the word
at least once a day as a direct result of using Windows.
"No other product has ever achieved that degree of market recognition and
for Toyota to muscle in on it was clearly a breach of commercial etiquette
and, ipso facto, copyright."
Microsoft is now planning a media-wide campaign using their catch-word. A
copy that has been leaked to us shows several familiar faces -- Steven King
is shown saving the last page of his new 800 page blockbuster in Word and
then re-opening it to find that it has been reduced to three smiley faces
and half a dozen Japanese characters. He smiles wanly at the camera and says
"Bugger".
Kerry Packer is shown shaking his head knowingly and muttering "Bugger" when
he discovers that the spreadsheet, on which he based his latest $4 billion
takeover, has suffered from the notorious Excel "four sevens are thirty six"
feature and that the Ayer's Rock Hot Pie Company is somewhat overvalued.
The head of the CIA (with his face pixelated) is shown shouting "Bugger" on
learning that Outlook has just e-mailed the entire contents of his hard
drive to the head of the KGB. She, in turn, says "byugyah" when the file is
found to be in last year's Access format.
A spokesthing for Microsoft commented, "This is a logical move for the
company that used 'You make a grown man cry' and 'The damned and accursed
are convicted to the flames of Hell' as advertising slogans for its
software. We anticipate establishing the slogan in the marketplace by
including a T-shirt printed with "Bugger Microsoft" in every box of our
software."