Battle Creek-based Kellogg Co. is satisfied that its trademarked Toucan Sam character isn't in danger, and the San Ramon, Calif.-based Maya Archaeology Initiative can keep using its own toucan logo. What's more, Kellogg is making a $100,000 contribution to cover a major part of the cost of building the MAI's long-planned Maya cultural center in Petén, a district in Guatemala, said MAI spokesperson Sam Haswell.

In early September, Fox News Latino reported that the early exchanges between MAI and Kellogg had prompted the company to rethink how Mayan culture was portrayed in a Froot Loops-related online adventure game, which subsequently was removed from Kellogg's website, according to latino.foxnews.com.

"MAI raised some points about the cultural sensitivity of one of our marketing executions that we hadn't considered," Fox News Latino quoted Charles as saying. "As a company long committed to diversity and inclusion and responsible marketing, Kellogg takes this concern very seriously."

"After conversations with MAI to better understand how they intend to use this design, we worked with them to identify an approach to revise their trademark application that will enable them to continue using their logo for their not-for-profit fundraising efforts," said Kris Charles, Kellogg's vice president for global communications and philanthropy, in an email to the Battle Creek Enquirer.

Kellogg also will help promote the MAI's work -- and website -- on Froot Loops cereal boxes next year, in presentations that also will feature Mayan accomplishments.

MAI, a non-profit that supports education for Guatemalan children (as well as archaeology), got a cease-and-desist letter from Kellogg's lawyers in July saying that Kellogg was concerned about an application to use the logo in connection with clothing, given that Sam also appears on clothing. Kellogg said it was also concerned about the use of "Mayan imagery" in the mark, saying that Sam also sometimes appeared in a similar setting.

Mott noted the differences between the two toucans, including coloration, beak shape, and the fact that MAI's bird is based on birds that actually exist in nature. Like other such birds, MAI's bird does not have a name. Also, MAI's logo includes a Mayan step pyramid and is egg-shaped, so it is more than just the bird. MAI doesn't plan to sell cereal, and so "[u]nless either of these toucans or their purposes change, there would be no incentive or reason for MAI to associate with Kellogg" and no likelihood of confusion.

Mott said she had looked at Kellogg's websites in an effort to explore this claim. The only imagery she could find that was even "vaguely Mayan," she said, was on the Froot Loops site, which includes a number of "Adventure" games set in various locales. Generic pyramids do appear in one of those, she noted, but there doesn't appear to be anything distinctively Mayan about them.

Disturbingly, the villain in this Kellogg Adventure and its related games -- and the only character who is of color [other than the birds] -- is a "witch doctor" with a cackling screech. Apparently, he is supposed to be a Maya. At best, this is culturally insensitive. I would characterize it as a demeaning caricature of an advanced and ancient civilization about which your game developers know nothing.