Friendship day in India was observed on the first Sunday of August, as usual brands jumped onto the bandwagon to celebrate the day with campaigns and social media posts that spoke of camaraderie.
Joining the trend, SBI Life launched a campaign titled ‘Dosti Ki Jhappi’. The brand used the taglines of competitors in its Friendship Day campaign, and billed it as ‘emphasising unity among competitor brands and promoting financial freedom for consumers’. The soundtrack leads with ‘Apne liye, Apno ke liye’ (SBI Life’s tagline) while multiple taglines of other brands are within the song.
Was it a smart move by SBI life to leverage competitors’ taglines, while leading with its own? Is it fair?
According to N Chandramouli, CEO at consumer analytics and brand insights agency TRA Research, the approach adopted, though inventive, raises eyebrows as it flirts with the boundaries of Intellectual Property Rights.
“Rather than fostering industry unity, it will irk competitors as it is co-opting their taglines. It’s important to recognise that these taglines are the fruit of significant deliberation, brainstorming, and strategic deployment. Moreover, the recall of individual taglines among consumers is arguably low, making the SBI Life move more opportunistic than collaborative. Embedding these taglines within SBI Life’s advertisement, sandwiched by their own tagline repeated, reinforces the subterfuge in this ad,” he observes.
“I think it’s a clever move. SBI is the largest banking and financial establishment in India. It ranks in Fortune 500 companies. SBI has the scale, so when they do something like this, that they are planning to expand the category of life insurance, it has some credibility. They are not the market leader in the life insurance category in India. It is a smart ploy to use the equity and also to walk the higher ground of expanding the category. As long as the brand is cleverly using other brand’s taglines amidst others (the taglines are not copied one on one), copyright issue doesn’t arise,” said Lloyd Mathias, Business Strategist and former marketing head of HP Asia.
While the Instagram post gives a shout out to all the brands referred – Kotak Life Insurance, HDFC Life, Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance, India First Life, ICICI Prudential Life, Bajaj Allianz, Tata AIA Life, Max Life, Aviva, LIC and SBI Mutual Funds – no such descriptor appears for the YouTube Video.
“At first glance, SBI Life leveraging competitor’s taglines might seem audacious. In the garb of Friendship Day, this is a clever strategy to weave in a message that SBI Life can do all of what competitors are promising,” opines Shweta Purandare, Founder, Tap-a-Gain and communications expert.
However, she points out that the risk of them being challenged is low.
“Additionally, the treatment of the advertisement is unique and does not mirror any previously released competitor advertisements in terms of its general layout, copy, visuals, music, or sound effects. Therefore, any references of plagiarism are off the table. The taglines, while they are taglines, are presented as colloquial terms or everyday sentences, which mitigates the direct association with the competitors,” Purandare adds.
“It is a different take on ‘moment marketing’ around Friendship Day. It is to be seen if any of the competitors responded to them on social media. If not, then it is a failed attempt in that sense. If the jingle resonates with their target consumer, the advertisement may create a memorable and distinct impression in the market. Otherwise, like any other Instagram Reel or a YouTube Shorts, it will be a short lived Friendship Day post,” she says.
According to VC Mathews, Practice Head at Fox Mandal & Associates, Delhi, the campaign is not a smart move by SBI Life.
“Unauthorised use amounting to trademark infringement occurs when someone uses a registered trademark without permission from the trademark owner. This act violates the exclusive rights granted to the trademark owner and can lead to legal consequences. If SBI has not taken authorisation from the brand owners, then the use of a tagline which is a trademark will amount to unauthorised use and can be infringement. Therefore, this would not be a smart move by SBI Life,” he explains.
Feedback: [email protected]
