Audi's advertisement took less than 24 hours from screen swiping to car overturning On May 21, Audi and Andy Lau jointly released a video on the solar term of Xiaoman. In the video, Andy Lau talked about his philosophy of life around the solar term of Xiaoman: "if there is a slight heat, there must be a great heat, if there is a slight cold, there must be a great cold, but Xiaoman must not be a great full, because the great full is not in line with the wisdom of our ancient people... Xiaoman represents an attitude towards life, that is, we have been on the road of pursuing perfection, but we do not require it, we must be perfect."
1. Screen brushing
There is no excessive commercialization element, nor even a close-up of the Audi brand. The whole process is presented with pastoral landscape pictures, and the integration of copywriting and video quietly highlights the high-level sense of the brand.
According to the data, the video received more than 100000 likes and forwards on wechat video number, more than 4.55 million likes and 10000 likes on Audi official wechat, and more than 5million likes on Andy Lau Tiktok.
2. Plagiarize
However, the advertisement became popular and soon fell into the storm of plagiarism.
On the night of May 21, man ge of Peking University, who has more than 3 million Tiktok fans, released the video "what is the experience of copying a copy that has been broadcast for billions of dollars". The video proved that Audi's advertising copy was almost copied by word comparison.
Man ge of Peking University said that this poem was first released in his circle of friends in 2018. There are original statements and creative processes in it. This is not the first time he has been copied. He believes that Andy Lau will not copy his own copy and hopes that whoever copied it can come out and make an explanation.
As soon as the original author's clarification video came out, the public opinion pointed at Audi, and netizens accused Audi of plagiarism, which not only caused trouble to brother man of Peking University, but also pit Andy Lau.
3. Apologize
Under the pressure of public opinion, Audi publicly apologized for the matter on the morning of May 22.
The official microblog issued a statement saying that we noticed that there was a discussion about copywriting infringement in a short video released yesterday. We sincerely apologize for the trouble caused to Mr. Andy Lau, brother man of Peking University and relevant parties due to weak supervision and lax audit in the incident.
The video was created by creative agency M & amp; Csaatchi submitted the report and implemented it. Based on the principle of not avoiding problems, we have instructed it to deal with the infringement of documents as soon as possible and give a satisfactory reply to the public. At the same time, before the facts are officially clarified, Audi's official channels will comprehensively take the video off the shelves.
After Audi apologized, at noon on May 22, M & amp; Csaatchi (hereinafter referred to as Shangsi advertising) also issued a statement saying that the company's Audi service team is the Audi xiaomanpian brand video development team. In the process of video content development, due to the weak copyright awareness of the team, without communicating with the copyright owner, it directly used the content of the Chinese video case about "Xiaoman" by the Tiktok blogger Beida mange, which has brought great inconvenience and trouble to Mr. liudehua, Beida mange and FAW Audi brands, I apologize and sincerely apologize to the original author, and promise to do my best to make up for the loss to the original author. The company promises to respect and protect the rights and interests of original authors in advertising creation and strictly prevent this from happening.
Shangsi advertising was fined 40000 yuan for violation of regulations
Previously, he has shot advertisements for Audi for many times
With the release of the apology statement, the agent company behind the video gradually surfaced.
According to the official website, Shangsi advertising is the world's largest independent advertising agency. The group is listed on the London Stock Exchange. Created by the saga brothers. At present, Shangsi advertising has 29 branches in major global markets and employs more than 3000 people.
Shangsi advertising has always been known for its high style. In addition to Audi, the company's domestic automobile brand customers also include BYD, Baojun automobile and Porsche.
According to tianyancha app, Shangsi advertising (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (M & amp; C Saatchi) was established on September 3, 2002. The legal representative is Liu Xinhai and the actual controller is Shangsi information (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd. its main business scope is to design, produce, publish and act as an agent for all kinds of advertisements at home and abroad.
The reporter found that the company was fined 41000 yuan by Shanghai Huangpu District market supervision and Administration for publishing advertisements using national, highest and best terms.
In addition, among the 11 video works on the advertising homepage of Tencent video, 9 are related to Audi, including A5 and A8L.
It can be seen that this plagiarism storm is not the first time that Shangsi plans to shoot a video for Audi. The two sides have always maintained a cooperative relationship.
Materialized female, sexual suggestion
Audi advertising and marketing frequently overturned
In fact, this is not the first time Audi has overturned in marketing publicity.
Because of the popularity of second-hand car search advertising in July 2017. In the advertisement, a newlyweds are holding a wedding ceremony. Her mother-in-law suddenly appears and shouts stop. Then she rushes forward and checks the bride in front of everyone.
As soon as the advertisement came out, it attracted public anger. Netizens accused Audi of comparing women to second-hand cars and suspected of vulgar marketing and consuming women. The incident ended with an official apology.
On November 13, 2019, Audi launched the advertising of Audi Q8 in the wechat circle of friends, but the video content was an Infiniti promotional film. Netizens have roast that this is a "large-scale rollover scene".
In August 2020, Audi posted an advertisement on the social network, in which a little girl in a short skirt leaned in front of the car, wearing sunglasses and eating bananas in her mouth.
At that time, the picture caused great controversy and was accused of "sexual suggestion". Under the pressure of public opinion, Audi subsequently apologized and said it would not be used in the future.
China has always been the largest single market of Audi in the world. According to the data, in 2021, Audi group delivered 1.689 million vehicles worldwide, a year-on-year decrease of 0.7%. Among them, 727000 vehicles were sold in China, accounting for about 43% of Audi's global sales.
However, in April this year, the sales volume of Audi was unsatisfactory. The data showed that the sales volume of FAW Volkswagen Audi in April was 22773, down 65% year-on-year, far behind 36883 and 32030 of Mercedes Benz and BMW of the same level.
At present, it is not known whether the advertisements of the above rollover events are planned and implemented by Shangsi advertising. However, as a world-famous automobile brand, Audi frequently rollover in advertising and marketing, which undoubtedly has a great impact on the brand image.
Today, people.com commented on the matter that for Audi, it was a terrible "car accident". Yesterday, there was a lot of praise on the video involved, but today, there is a lot of scolding. No matter how luxurious a car is, it will be embarrassing if it "overturns". Once the copywriter is involved in the plagiarism storm, it will be a geometric disgrace. The involved text is like this: "no complacency, insufficient knowledge". I wonder if the company involved has any deficiencies? Is there any shame?