ExxonMobil terminates license agreement with Microscale

[bbussey]

Microscale announced today that ExxonMobil is terminating its license agreement with them, effective June 9.  Set #60-938 will be discontinued effective that date.

[GaryHinshaw]

Fair enough.  Effective today, I terminate my agreement to purchase gasoline from ExxonMobil.  I already refuse to ship UPS.

[up1950s]

Why , did somebody roll a refer with a decal sheet ?

[TiVoPrince]

Probable
that thier lawyers found out just how much sweet, sweet licensing cash UP is collecting and wanted in.  Or they will be coming out with thier own line of HO scale licensed items...

[wcfn100]

Only 415 in stock.  That's probably 5x more than people who will actually use them.

edit:  BTW, you have until June 9th to get them from MS.

Jason

[SkipGear]

By discontinued, do they mean they are going to destroy any remaining stock or will it be around till it is sold out?

[wcfn100]

By discontinued, do they mean they are going to destroy any remaining stock or will it be around till it is sold out?

They say destroyed per agreement.

Jason

[basementcalling]

Fair enough.  Effective today, I terminate my agreement to purchase gasoline from ExxonMobil.  I already refuse to ship UPS.

Haven't bought Exxon gas since the Prince William oil spill back in 1986 or so.

I guess free advertising and good will have no value.

[ljudice]

A ruptured Exxon pipeline would make an excellent model scene.

[C855B]

Thanks for the tip, Bryan. Since this sign/identity is right in my modeling period and is a significant one, I thought it best to stock-up and ordered 5 sets just in case.

[up1950s]

Destroyed per blah blah blah .

Microscale could put the lot with no reserve on eBay and be done with them . If ExMobil wants the destroy them they can buy them . Why should Microscale eat it , and why should the modelers lose out . 

[randgust]

I'm wondering if Exxon is terminating agreements across the board or just picking on Microscale. 

You could hope to get a good run of negative PR out of this, after all, we 'Microscale' customers aren't 10-year olds, I control the purchasing for my company.

Then again it's kinda hard to top blowing up a pipeline in Arkansas and getting a 'no fly zone' so the press can't get a good look at it.

Oh, and remember your history.  UP vs. Lionel was in 2004, by 2006 MTH spearheaded the agreement that basically was a surrender by UP.  In the interim, it ended up on the front page of the WSJ and on the NBC Evening News.   Massive PR blunder by UP.   I'm pretty sure I know the executive that OK'd that to begin with, he's no longer with UP.   And yeah, the beauty of that is that after almost ten years, people are still mad at UP about it.

[Lemosteam]

TB has an image of the letter describing their "logic"...

http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?150916-Relaying-a-message-from-MicroScale-decals

[Catt]

There has not been a Exxon or Mobil station in my part of West Michigan for at least 20 years if not longer.Since I model today the loss of these decals is no big deal to me.For those the model a time when these stations were around I think this sucks.

[Edit] Now that I've said there are no Mobil stations around here I noticed a station that was a Marathon last week is a Mobil this week.Oh and they are the highest priced station on the street.30 cents higher than any of the other stations.

[jnevis]

TB has an image of the letter describing their "logic"...

http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?150916-Relaying-a-message-from-MicroScale-decals

To paraphrase...
ExxonMobile only wants to have internally developed toys,models, ect with no one else able to use their logos. I'm sure that you won't see any B-Mann, Atlas et al rolling stock either.