China's Ad Market Is Rife With Copycats
When Unilever China wanted to run new TV advertising for Dove shower cream last year, it chose a spot with soft lighting and a satisfied consumer telling how smooth the soap made her skin. Three months later, when a local competitor, Jiu Xin Group, wanted to run new TV advertising for Man Ting soap, it, too, chose a spot with soft lighting and a satisfied consumer telling how smooth the soap made her skin.
Even some Unilever employees couldn't tell the spots apart, says Wayne Huang, Unilever China's Shanghai-based marketing controller. "We were shocked at the similarity."
Coincidence? Perhaps. Jiu Xin denies copying the Dove ad. "We created our own ad according to market demand," says a staffer in the company's ad department, who declined to give her name. Still, Dove had to enter a sort of advertising arms race to drown out the look-alike message. "If they keep spending heavily and we don't spend, they'll end up owning this ad format. That's dangerous for us," says Mr. Huang.
The episode highlights a new twist on China's loose enforcement of intellectual-property rights. With China's $14.5 billion advertising industry on course to become the world's second-largest ad market within a decade, the industry's mushrooming ideas and images have become open targets for copying. Both multinationals and local Chinese companies have copied everything from bottle designs to luxury-car slogans.
Ads for Fiat's Siena had a reflecting-water theme (top); it soon showed up in ads for Volkswagen's Sharan (bottom).
For many companies, copycat ads are a problem potentially more vexing than counterfeit goods. Shoppers at street markets usually know that they are buying pirated DVDs and knock-off handbags. But carbon-copy ads are more insidious, agencies say, because they muddy consumers' recollection of who's who even in mainstream stores.
"In China, so many brands are doing so much message copying, there is little differentiation possible," says Chris Jacques, the Shanghai-based Asia-Pacific chief of WPP Group's Dentsu, Young & Rubicam.
Agencies around the world often put borrowed ideas into ads. But in China, the practice has risen to a new level. Copycat ads frequently make no attempt to differentiate themselves from the originals. Victims have little legal recourse. Industry executives say many advertisers in China simply don't see copying as taboo. Clients even instruct their agencies to do it.
To protect their own work, some agencies are already changing the way they do business in China. Some have abandoned the "pitch," the ritual where agencies vie for new business by showing a prospective client their best ideas. Aaron Lau, Asia chairman of Omnicom Group's DDB agency, recalls losing a package-design pitch in Hong Kong and China only to see his design pop up in stores seven months later.
In an effort to prevent clients from lifting their ideas and taking them to a lower-cost rival, agencies say they have started researching whether potential clients have a history of intellectual-property theft. Some clients are being asked to sign legal agreements before agencies will share original ideas with them. Mr. Lau once even trademarked ideas for a logo-design pitch under DDB's name before sharing the ideas with a client.
"Chinese society has a very vague notion of intellectual-property rights," says Mr. Lau. The only marketing advantage is how quickly you can launch your campaign, he says, "because your idea will be copied."
Agency executives say few of their Chinese clients recognize copying as plagiarism. Chinese companies often prize speed more than creativity to generate sales. "They think they're smart just because they've copied a good campaign earlier than others," says Guan Hin, executive creative director of Grey Global Group, Southeast Asia.
In 2002, Italy's Fiat SpA was positioning its Siena model in the Chinese market as a car for both "business success and passionate living," says Donald Chan, managing director of Leo Burnett Shanghai. Leo Burnett's print ad showed the car at an urban office building and, reflected in water below, at a mountain retreat. The same year, Japanese car maker Nissan Motor Co. ran an ad for its Paladin sport-utility vehicle created by the agency Shanghai Dongpai. The ad showed the SUV in the city and, in a water image below, in the mountains. Yu Zhiping, Shanghai Dongpai's creative director, says his agency had the idea first.
The reflecting-water theme surfaced yet again in an ad for Volkswagen AG's Sharan created by Grey's Beijing office. The German car maker declined to comment. A Grey spokeswoman says the ad was an original. By that time, Leo Burnett decided to abandon the mirror-image ad because of the look-alikes.
Indeed, copying has shortened the life span of Chinese ads, ad agency executives complain. The average TV commercial in China currently runs for about six months, and often less, down from one to two years in the late 1990s, according to DDB's Mr. Lau.
Laws exist in China to protect elements such as logos and designs, but they are weakly enforced. In the U.S., agencies usually don't register their ads with the government copyright office, given time constraints and the volume of ads they produce. But they do get some protection under the law by attaching a copyright notice to ads, which TV viewers can't see. For a look-alike to infringe upon an original ad, says Linda Goldstein, head of the ad practice at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, the look-alike must be substantially similar in graphics, copy, look and feel, or setting.
U.S. agencies usually rely on peer pressure to stop copycats. But in recent years, several plaintiffs have prevailed in court. In one high-profile case, two men sued Yum Brands Inc., parent of Taco Bell, in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids, Mich., alleging that their design shop, and not Taco Bell's ad agency, created the popular talking chihuahua who starred in Taco Bell ads. The plaintiffs said they pitched the chihuahua idea to Taco Bell more than a year before the tiny dog first appeared in spots in 1997. Last year, a jury awarded the men $30.1 million, plus interest of $11.8 million.
In China, however, neither legal enforcement nor peer pressure is very strong. Unilever's ad agency, WPP Group's Ogilvy & Mather, asked the Chinese Advertising Association to pressure Jiu Xin to change the Man Ting ads. "But there was nothing we could do to stop them," Mr. Huang says.
Many advertisers viewed as copycats by Westerners are seen by their peers as aggressive competitors, adept at quickly modifying and implementing new ideas. "The concept of water-based cosmetics has been picked up by many local brands," says Viveca Chan, Grey's chief executive in China. "Do we call this copycat? Or are local companies quicker, and distribute faster?"
中国广告商陷入创意抄袭旋涡
联合利华中国(UNILEVER CHINA)去年为其多芬(Dove)沐浴乳打出了一个电视广告，宣传它能增加皮肤的光泽，片中一位消费者很满意的表示这种沐浴乳让她的皮肤更加光滑。三个月后，当地竞争对手九鑫集团(Jiu Xin Group)推出了满婷香皂电视广告，宣传它能增加皮肤的光泽，一位对产品感到满意的消费者在片中说该香皂让她的皮肤更加光滑。
联合利华中国上海的营销经理Wayne Huang说，即便是联合利华的一些员工也分辨不出两则广告。Huang说，"我们对（广告的）相似性感到震惊"，这一情况迫使他增加多芬的广告支出，在既定的城市消费市场同满婷一争高下。他说，"如果他们继续大量投入广告，而我们不投入的话，他们就会赢得这场广告战。"不过九鑫否认拷贝了多芬的广告。"我们是根据市场需求制作我们自己的广告的，"该公司广告部门一位拒绝透露姓名的员工称。
联合利华的此番经历是中国缺乏对知识产权尊重的一个最新例证。随著中国145亿美元广告市场竞争的加剧，广告和电视节目中的创意和形象正成为公开的侵犯目标。中国广告市场去年增长了30%。
跨国公司和中国本地公司抄袭从包装瓶设计到豪华车宣传语的一切东西。
对于像宝洁(Procter & Gamble)这样的公司，广告模仿是一个可能比冒牌产品更加让人恼火的问题。该公司去年单单在玉兰油(Olay)一个品牌上就投入了3亿美元营销费用。消费者一般都知道他们在街头市场买的是盗版DVD和仿制提包。但广告公司称，模仿广告会削弱一个品牌的名气，混淆那些分辨不清商店里各种商品的消费者的视听。"在中国，有那么多品牌在如此广泛地模仿其他品牌的广告，广告差异变得几乎不可能了，"WPP Group旗下的Dentsu, Young & Rubicam亚太CEO克里斯?雅克(Chris Jacques)说。
全世界的广告公司都在借用创意融入到广告攻势中，但在中国这种做法已提升到了一个新水平。广告模仿者往往不想与原创广告有所区别。受害方几乎找不到任何法律救助，因为版权法只保护名称、商标、歌曲和文字作品。对盗用创意的主要威慑力来自同行的压力－－自愿坚守行业道德标准－－而这正是中国不如其他广告业更加成熟的国家的地方。
这就迫使一些广告公司改变了他们在中国做生意的方式。一些公司放弃了"创意推销"，即广告公司为了争夺业务向客户展示他们最好的创意。Omnicom Group旗下DDB广告公司的亚洲董事长Aaron Lau在香港和中国的一个广告创意就曾经落入他人之手，他在为一个产品所做的包装设计在7月后出现在了商店货架上。
为防止客户盗用创意并将其交给更低成本的营销商，广告公司称他们现在要研究潜在客户盗用知识产权的历史并要求客户在同他们分享原创设计之前签署法律协议。Lau甚至将一个商标设计注册到了DDB名下，以在将该创意介绍给某客户之前获得其法律所有权。Lau说，"中国人的知识产权观念非常模糊。"现在唯一的营销优势就是你能多快推出你的广告攻势，他说，"因为你的创意无论怎样都会被人抄袭。"
广告公司还表示，他们的中国客户很少意识到模仿是剽窃行为。中国公司往往更加标榜以广告推出的速度来增加销售，而不是创意。曾担任Publicis Groupe旗下的李奥贝纳(Leo Burnett)创意总监的Guan Hin说，"他们认为自己很聪明，因为他们比别人更早地抄袭了一个广告。"
在这种毫无游戏规则可言的环境中，甚至全球性品牌也借用创意和形象，其程度是他们在其他市场所不会尝试的。李奥贝纳上海公司的董事总经理Donald Chan举了一个例，2002年，意大利的菲亚特(Fiat)将其西耶那(Siena)定位为一款"事业成功和激情生活的"车，菲亚特广告就是针对这一点进行的宣传。李奥贝纳设计了一个平面广告，上面是一辆停在一个都市写字楼旁的汽车，而镜中映射的是一个湖光山色的景象。
同在2002年，日本汽车制造商日产(Nissan)也为其帕拉丁(Paladin)运动型多用途车打出广告。上海东派(Shanghai Dongpai)广告公司为其制作的广告将这辆车放在城市背景下，同样镜中映射的是湖光山色。上海东派创意总监俞志平(Yu Zhiping，音译)就这一雷同创意接受采访时称，他的广告公司最先拿出了这个创意。
2003年，北京的华威葛瑞整合传播集团(Grey Global Group)为大众(Volkswagen)夏朗(Sharan)汽车设计的广告中再次出现了同样的主题和镜中影像。这家德国汽车制造商拒绝置评，但华威葛瑞整合传播集团的发言人坚持声称该广告是原创的。
当时，李奥贝纳已因广告雷同放弃了菲亚特的镜中影像广告。其实，Chan及其他一些人抱怨称，广告创意抄袭导致广告投放时间缩短了。据DDB的Lau说，在中国，一个电视广告的平均播放时间是6个月，甚至更短，而1990年代末期的平均播放时间是一年到两年。
广告公司称，广告中的创意往往都太模糊，因此难以注册版权，或者太麻烦了。因此他们要倚赖同业压力来阻止抄袭。但中国广告业的同业压力还没有形成。在联合利华的广告商－－WWP Group旗下的奥美(Ogilvy & Mather)看到多芬和满婷的雷同广告后，它请求中国广告协会(Chinese Advertising Association)向九鑫集团施压，要求其改变这一广告。Huang说，"但要阻止他们这么做，我们却无能为力。"
不过一些广告商称，中国广告公司很擅长迅速修改和实现新的创意，西方公司有意将这些中国竞争对手描绘为抄袭者。
华威葛瑞整合传播集团的中国CEO Viveca Chan说，"亲水化妆品概念很快被很多本地品牌所吸收，我们能称之为抄袭吗？还是本地公司反应更快，推广更迅速呢？"去年，新闻集团(News Corp.)旗下Star Group的国语频道星空卫视(Xing Kong Weishi)推出的两档重头节目均被中国的电视台模仿，包括节目的理念、背景和主题歌曲等。星空卫视向这些电视台提出控诉后，这些节目被撤掉了。
Star不愿意在版权上花钱，将"谁想成为百万富翁"这个问答节目带到中国来，因为中国版的此类节目已在播放当中了。同广告商一样，Star每四到五个月就推出新的中文节目，为的是比盗版节目领先一步。
