MINNEAPOLIS — If you've ever seen a Kris Lindahl Real Estate billboard around the Twin Cities and thought to yourself, "why is he always posing with his arms like that," we're happy to say we have the answer.
Last month, Lindahl filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to trademark his signature "arms out wide" pose, aka the "depiction of a human shown from chest up, smiling and looking straight ahead, with arms outstretched slightly higher than perpendicular to the torso and fingers splayed."
Why the need for an official trademark? To protect his realtor brand.
But the bigger question on the minds of Minnesotans (we think) is, why does Lindahl pose like that anyway?
KARE 11's Jana Shortal got to the bottom of the outstretched arms origin story.
"It started with free hugs," Lindahl said in a video sent to Jana. "We wanted to give back to the community. Generosity is what we're focused on. That's our mission."
There you have it. The backbone of Lindahl's famous-around-town marketing campaign is based on the tenants of kindness and giving to others.
And as Jana mentions in the video above, we have to give credit where credit is due: KARE 11 reporter Chris Hrapsky was first to predict that the arm pose had something to do with free hugs.
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