Luxury car brand Audi’s newly released advertisement video in China has been accused of copying word for word from Chinese social media influencer Beida Mange’s script for a video he released last year.
The advertisement, featuring famous Hong Kong actor Andy Lau, has caused a public outcry from Chinese net users over Audi’s plagiarism.
Audi released the advertisement on Chinese social media platforms Saturday. The same night, Mange, a blogger with nearly 4 million followers on short video platform Douyin, published a video accusing the brand of copying one of his video scripts from 2021.
In the video, Mange makes a frame-by-frame comparison between his video and the Audi advertisement, revealing that the wording between the two is almost exactly the same. This includes a poem the blogger says he composed on the same day last year, and he has record of him publishing the poem on his WeChat moments last year.
“I have worked in the internet industry for over 17 years, and it’s the first time my work has been copied word for word for commercial usage,” said the blogger, who graduated from the prestigious Peking University and focuses on producing educational content.
After the advertisement was released, some netizens left comments asking Mange if he had copied Audi’s advertisement, which he said is very “confusing.”
Audi issued an apology on Sunday morning over the plagiarism, and said it had removed the advertisement from all platforms.
The statement said that the video was produced by London-based ad agency M&C Saatchi, and Audi has demanded the relevant companies to address the copywriting infringement.
(Cover photo via CFP)
Source: CGTN
