Proctor & Gamble moves to trademark slang like WTF and FML to make products hip. NBD?

ICYMI, Proctor & Gamble is trying to trademark four popular text-friendly acronyms to use on some of its products to make them more hip and attractive to younger shoppers.

According to Ad Age, the company wants to trademark: LOL (laugh out loud), WTF (what the f***?), NBD (no big deal) and FML (f*** my life).

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has asked the company to clarify its request and P&G has until January to respond to the company’s request, Ad Age reported.

“Precise uses remain TBD, as P&G declined to provide TMI,” Ad Age wrote.

P&G intends to use the acronyms on its “liquid soap, dishwashing detergent, hard surface cleaners and air fresheners,” CNBC reported. P&G’s website lists Febreze, Dawn, Gain, Charmin and Tide among its top brands.

The company declined to comment about the move to Bloomberg, which noted that new P&G board member, activist investor Nelson Peltz, has dinged the 181-old company, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, for not being quick to meet the fast-changing tastes of young consumers.

Peltz told CNBC last year that younger buyers don’t want “one-size fits all” brands. “Millennials want these little brands, these local brands that they have an emotional attachment to,” he said.

Quartz news site warns of the pitfalls that await companies that try to speak the language they think their customers use - though it did say P&G could get some traction by changing the meaning of WTF to “Wow, That’s Febreze!”

“Remember when Microsoft tried to recruit interns by addressing them as ‘BAE’ (a moniker of affection meaning ‘before anyone else’)? “ writes Quartz. “And the last time that P&G sparked a millennial trend people started eating Tide pods.”

IMO? (In my honest opinion?)

Well, we’re not allowed to say.