Lones Group sues Daniel “Real Estate Zebra” Rothamel
The Lones Group
**UPDATE** Daniel Rothamel has written a blog post detailing and explaining his decisions in regards to the lawsuit.
Up until yesterday, I had never heard of The Lones Group (much like Jay Thompson, I refuse to link to them). Some of you might not know Daniel, but he is know amongst real estate bloggers and his clients as the Real Estate Zebra. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Daniel in real life as well as interacted with him many times online via the usual social media channels. I’ve read his blog and learned a lot about branding through him as I watched. Daniel Rothamel, like me, was taking an unconventional item and focusing it on real estate. He has the zebra, I have the rockstar. In that sense, I have a special bond with Daniel.
Trademarks and lawsuits
Apparently, The Lones Group has been using zebras in their marketing and at some point came across Daniel and his zebra-infused branding. They chose to file a lawsuit. As usual, I have to explain that I am not a lawyer nor am I an expert on trademark law. What follows in less about the law and more about social media, marketing, and what in my opinion will become an excellent case study for future branding issues in the world of internet marketing and use of trademarks within that space.
You can read the whole complaint, “The Lones Group v. Daniel Rothamel and Strong Team Realtors, Inc.” (courtesy of the Zebra Defense Fund).
When the complaint was filed by The Lones Group, I’m not sure if they knew much about Daniel and what he has done in the world of real estate – particularly within blogging and social media. The Real Estate Zebra as many of us know him isn’t just a guy with a good idea for marketing himself – he’s a well known authority on blogging, branding, and social media within the real estate industry. I met him a couple of years ago and because of my awareness of him from reading his blogs and speaking to him online, we started an immediate conversation. You know my thoughts on how social media connects us.
The lawsuit has had an immediate effect in real estate circles. Many Realtors® that were unaware that The Lones Group existed now do. Goal accomplished! Unfortunately, it’s not the kind of awareness that one seeks to attract. Now, there are thousands of us reading blogs about the lawsuit and coming to the “defense” of Daniel Rothamel and Strong Team Realtors®. While it will be up to the courts to decide the legalities involved, the case is being tried in the court of public opinion as we speak. This is the new way of the world. Your actions will be viewed on a mass scale, particularly when you make an unpopular move in a close knit industry. As The Lones Group sells marketing services to real estate agents, this is not the kind of publicity they want. I, along with others, were potential clients of their services. By showing their true nature (in my opinion lawsuits of this kind are ridiculous money-grabs), they have revealed to me a company that I would not choose to do business with. Daniel Rothamel is a friend and in an industry like ours, we look out for each other. I am proud to know the Real Estate Zebra and count him amongst my real estate friends – online and offline.
Donations are being accepted to help Daniel with his legal defense costs at the Zebra Defense Fund. Any money above and beyond his costs will be donated to charity.
I would also suggest you read Jay Thompson’s “The Lones Group v. Rothamel: A case study in destroying your on-line reputation” as it is an excellent look at online reputation and this case. Jay is also maintaining a list of posts regarding our industry’s reaction to the lawsuit (he’s great at keeping those lists!).
photo courtesy of Martin Pettitt with special thanks to Mariana Wagner for inspiration to find the photo
Email This Post
Print This Post
« Review: Philly’s Phamous Cheesesteak | Home | Code for #savethezebra Widget »
Comments
You only get one chance to make a first impression. Daniel’s knowledge of marketing, blogging and social media impressed me enough to bookmark his blog and to follow him on Twitter.
The Lones Group on the other hand……
Mark – Social media changed the rules for the court of public opinion. I have full faith in Daniel and how he will respond to this.
Regardless of the outcome, the brand (Lones Group) is now tarnished amongst so many. As for Daniel, his branding and name recognition just hit new heights. The complete opposite of the intention of the lawsuit.
I also recommend Jeff Bernheisel’s “The Lones Group Lesson: Destroying Your Brand Online” as an excellent read about the effects of something like this on your brand and social capital.
I say we all buy an additional url, for example, http://www.BonitaSpringsZebra.com and redirect it to our r.e. blogs.
OK, I might as well round this out by commenting here. This is an old fashioned firestorm where social media tries to flex a muscle.
The more I read, and the more links that are offered, it does look like the Lones Group was left no other option than to litigate.
David – Although I don’t really see the reason for litigation (then again, I’m not a lawyer and in particular, not a trademark lawyer), I just can’t see how this benefits The Lones Group. It’s created a lot of bad press and bothered the exact people that I would think Denise would pursue as potential clients.
As I’ve said elsewhere, regardless of the outcome of the complaint (and that will be for the legal system to decide), this is more about the effect on social capital, reputation, and the branding that it seeks to protect.
Denise is trying to do good things for the Real Estate community. Her goals were to elevate Real Estate professionalism. I admire that, and God bless her for it.
The way it appears to me is that Daniel has stepped out of his role as a Real Estate agent. There are photos of him at conferences, he appears to be speaking to a group, he has obviously made friends around the country.
By all apearances he is stepping up to be in a similar arena as The Lones Group. The appearance, here, in the social media world is that Daniel may become a speaker, trainer, and marketeer outside of a Brokerage.
Daniel did get a cease, and desist back in July. Daniel is choosing to move ahead to defend his brand. Best of luck with that, but I think he should have stopped this firestorm today, and quickly. It has done him more harm than good.
I know there has to be more than one RE rockstar, I can think of at least 3 I know of. Not worth a lawsuit to find out which one is the real RE rockstar or which one came first.
David – I have no doubt that Denise is trying to do good things. So far the people I have seen speak about her from personal knowledge have had nothing but good things to say about her and her work. That (for me) is not the issue.
The issue revolves around a) I (and I emphasize I) don’t think the lawsuit should have been filed – I’ve seen and dealt with my fair share of lawsuits in the music industry and my opinion of most lawsuits is not very high – I just don’t like them in general, b) I think they’re in two different sectors of the industry and the potential for harm to The Lones Group’s reputation amongst agents (the very people they look to as potential clients) was too high, and c) Daniel is someone I consider a friend and I will always defend someone like him (unless they’re doing something I don’t agree with).
As a real estate agent, Daniel is called upon to talk about his experiences and thoughts on blogging, social media, marketing, etc. – this is common practice in our industry. I think it would be the same in any industry – you want to hear from people who know the industry intimately. I heard a speaker once at a real estate event talking about how we should market ourselves (specifically he was speaking about social media marketing) and the guy didn’t seem to know what he was talking about from a real estate agent’s perspective. Within minutes half the agents had tuned him out and were on their cell phones checking their Facebook and Twitter (and looking him up, which is another story altogether). That doesn’t mean that I would call Daniel to hire him as my marketing guy. It does mean I would listen to him and learn from him.
Daniel’s choice to move ahead and not obey the cease and desist is his to make, but I do support him in his choice. There are few choices he could make that I can dream up that would cause me not to support him.
Personally, I don’t think it’s harming his reputation based on what I’ve read (and I am speaking only of comments that aren’t from his group of friends). Perhaps it has – time will tell, but I do honestly believe that it won’t.
I hate to play the “agree to disagree” card, but I know we’ll never agree on this – this much is apparent from your comments around the internet and my responses to them.
In the end, I do hope this all goes away for both of them, because much like Jay Thompson said in one of his comments, in the end the real winners will be the lawyers.
Michael – There is no doubt that there are other who would dub themselves “real estate rockstars” or some form of that. There are plenty of people who use the word “rockstar” in many ways that are not associated with music in the slightest.
For me, it’s a combination of two things in my life – real estate and my former career as a rockstar.
What’s In A Name? The Genesis Of RErockstar.
This train wreck will be fun to watch. Denise has no idea what she is in for. Just wait until her website doesnt even rank for her companies name. All this bad press and having hundreds of SEO savy real estate bloggers writing about the story? She doesn’t stand a chance. I sincerely hope she realizes the mistake she has made and apologizes to Daniel before things get really bad.
Franklin
The threats against Denise really bother me.
The Lones Group has legal rights.
Since commenting around the blogosphere, I’ve found that Daniel is coming to Seattle in March for the REBoot, an Inman event, who broke the story.
The REBar that I’m attending, the first one, now has a Zebra theme.
It’s just a whole bunch of negative social media directed at a person asking for legal recourse. Instead she gets a fire storm of social media threats to destroy her brand.
It just doesn’t speak well of the online Real Estate community.
Your photo of the rear end of the zebra perfectly sums up my impression of the Lones Group. What a bunch of a**es
David – Perhaps some of the vitrol has been a bit much, but the idea of what everyone is standing for (in my opinion) is good. Does Denis have legal rights? Of course she does and the true weight of those rights will be determined in court. While many have offered their thoughts and opinions on the legal issue, I think it’s about more than that.
If you can’t stand by people you believe in, what can you stand by? I would hope that those that believe in The Lones Group would blog, speak out, and defend their friend too.
Carmen – There were so many photos to choose from (a lot of people take photos of sebras), but Mariana Wagner’s blog had a similar one and it made me chuckle…so I when I came across this one, I had to use it in a nod to one of the funniest women in real estate.
Trackbacks
Leave a Comment