Till now, we heard of China being the master of copying products and not being ashamed of it. But a new country has come forward with being mischievous, and it’s none other than our not-so-sweet neighbour Pakistan. A Pakistani beauty brand has recently been accused of plagiarising an Indian commercial, during the telecast of the Pakistan Super League (PSL). The 40-second-long-something hair brand commercial showed our Indian actor Kareena Kapoor endorsing Olivia Intense by Pakistan’s Maskatiya Industries.
If you’ve been watching PSL in the last few weeks, you won’t have missed Kareena Kapoor’s commercial inbetween the plethora of breaks. This commercial is by famous Pakistani brand ‘Olivia’ by Maskatiya Industries and features Mrs Kapoor, endorsing a hair color treatment by the name of ‘Olivia Intense’.
Apparently, the Pakistani commercial has been copied frame-to-frame from an Indian commercial by BBlunt Salon Secret’s ad film that was released in 2016. BBlunt is owned by Mumbai-based Godrej Group.
However, if you notice the BBlunt ad, it clearly features Kareena’s choice of product selection and in the TVC. It shows the ever-glamourous actress using the hair colouring product and endorsing it with a signature slogan at the end.
Some people have been speculating that the new Olivia Ad featuring Kareena, looks oddly similar to her BBlunt Ad, with some very clever image manipulation techniques by the Paki brand!
Making rounds on social media already, you can already clearly see that the ad’s content aren’t actually original!
As per this television commercial, it has blatantly taken pieces from the 2016 Indian hair product advertisement, using the same bits to just simply replace the original brand’s name for the Paki hair brand.
The advertisement has raised many eyebrows over the copyright and intellectual property laws in the country. The only difference in the Pakistani commercial was the product that Kapoor held in her hands – that of Olivia.
On its website, the Pakistani brand names Bipasha Basu, Nargis Fakhri, Aditi Rao Hydari and Shruti Haasan as Olivia’s brand endorsers. It, however, doesn’t mention Kareena Kapoor. Despite repeated mails sent to Maskatiya by Campaign Asia, it did not respond.
According to Campaign Asia, business head Sunil Kataria at Godrej Consumer Products said:
“We wish to clarify that GCPL has no business relationship with Maskatiya Industries Private Limited. It has been brought to our notice recently that Maskatiya Industries have copied the ‘BBlunt Salon secret High Shine Crème hair colour’ TVC. This seems to be a direct case of plagiarism and Godrej Consumer Products Limited condemn this act which infringes our copyrights over the said TVC.”
The only difference between the two commercials is when you notice the product Kareena ends up holding at the end of the commercials. See the original here:
Now spot the difference:
After catching a whiff of trouble, the commercial has since been removed from all of Olivia’s social media pages such as YouTube and Facebook. Their Indian counterpart Godrej Group has sent a legal notice to Maskatiya.
The advertisement now in question for plagiarism on social media, has caused a fury of comments. Here are some of them:
Maskatiya Industries and their digital agency are yet to release any official statement about this disgusting case of copy-paste. Meanwhile, what are your views on this? Tell us in the comments.