Cincinnati Candidate Used Trademarked Jingle

The Cincinnati city council race is scheduled for November 4, 2025. It currently has a record-breaking 25 candidates vying for nine slots on the council. According to the election’s rules, all seats are at-large, meaning there are no districts, and no candidate is running under a party label.

Needless to say, with so many names in one election, candidates are fighting for ways to stand out. However, one of the candidates may be standing out for the wrong reasons, as his use of a famous jingle raises questions of both copyright and trademark infringement.

According to a report by Bret Buganski at WCPO, candidate Kevin Farmer has featured a jingle on both his signs and in his phone marketing that mirrors the famous jingle for Farmers Insurance.

It’s a rare case that not only sits at the intersection of copyright and trademark, but also mixes in local politics.

But this raises a slew of questions. Could Farmers Insurance sue? If so, are they likely to? Will this have any impact on the election? The answers are, fortunately, fairly straightforward, although the questions are still amazingly bizarre.

The Story So Far

Cincinnati, like many US cities, is holding its mayoral and city council elections later this year. By mid-August, a record 25 candidates had declared and certified their intention to run for city council. One of those candidates is Kevin Farmer, a “public relations and marketing professional” who is running on a platform of transparency.

However, many of his signs feature musical notes with the phrase “Bum ba-dum bum bum bum bum.” A pattern that closely follows the jingle for Farmers Insurance.

In the segment, the Buganski asks nearby workers to what they think of the sign and agree it’s similar to the jingle.

However, as if to remove all doubt, when Buganski called Farmer’s campaign, the answering machine played the jingle, as performed by Farmer himself. When pressed about this, Farmer denied knowing the jingle, saying that he just liked doing it and doesn’t “watch a lot of TV.”

Buganski then interviewed Michelle Browning Coughlin, a law professor at Northern Kentucky University. She pointed out that the jingle is both protected by copyright and is also a registered trademark of Farmers Insurance. She also noted that there are issues of false endorsement, as it could lead some to believe that Farmers Insurance endorses or supports Kevin Farmer.

When Buganski told Farmer that there were potential legal issues, he said, If they want to sue him, “they have that right.”

Fortunately for Kevin Farmer, a lawsuit isn’t particularly likely. But his response still doesn’t bode particularly well.

So, What is Likely Next?

The answer is probably nothing. If Farmers Insurance does anything, it will likely be a cease-and-desist letter. But with the election less than a month away and the fact that Farmer is not a direct competitor, it probably isn’t worth doing much more.

If Farmer were another insurance company, the campaign was nationally relevant and/or had the potential to go on for longer, we would likely see a stronger response. As it is, Farmers Insurance doesn’t have much motivation to use a stronger hand.

We have some precedent for this. Countless musicians have protested the use of their music at political events for President Donald Trump. However, few have filed a lawsuit, and one of the most notable, The White Stripes, dropped their lawsuit two months later after the election.

That said, those who did file lawsuits have fared reasonably well in the courts. A notable example is the estate of Isaac Hayes, which filed a lawsuit in August 2024. They won an injunction against further use of Hayes’ music, but the case is ongoing. Another lawsuit, filed by Eddy Grant, saw the campaign held liable for using the song “Electric Avenue” in a 2020 campaign video.

Still, all of these examples involved a highly divisive national campaign. A smaller, local campaign won’t draw much attention.

But, even if it did, Farmers Insurance would face two problems. First, political speech is widely considered the most protected form of speech in the United States. While this doesn’t mean you can’t commit copyright or trademark infringement through political speech, it does make proving it more difficult.

Second, the damages would likely be relatively low. Not only does the local nature of the election limit the potential harm to Farmers Insurance, but local campaigns rarely have significant resources.

A lawsuit would be a risky endeavor with minimal potential reward on the other side.

Bottom Line

Legally, this case is more of an interesting footnote. It’s relatively rare to get a case that lives in the overlap between copyright and trademark and even more rare to have it also involve local politics. All in all, it’s more amusing than it is serious.

The one thing I do find worrisome is Farmer’s response to it. It’s pretty obvious what he is doing and denying it, while possibly a legally-savvy strategy, doesn’t look good from a transparency one.

It’s going to be difficult to impossible to argue that he didn’t hear the jingle before now and just happened to recreate it. It’s one of the most memorable mnemonics in advertising, with an audio recall score of 90 and it’s been around for over a decade.

While I am not a lawyer and nothing in this is legal advice, as a potential voter (although not in his election) I would have preferred Farmer lean into it. Admit that he did it deliberately as a joke. While these may not help with the copyright or trademark questions, it would have been honest.

And that’s the big problem. His response to it beggars belief.

Obviously, the best move was to not use the jingle in the first place. However, if you’re going to, trying to claim that it’s a coincidence does nothing to make you look like a good candidate. Either you are breathtakingly unlucky or lying. Neither outcome bodes well.

Fortunately, the odds of this spilling over into the courtroom are slim. Farmers Insurance has no real motivation to do so. However, Farmer the candidate should really learn from this experience.

After all, there will be another election in just four years…