Mumbai: Ogilvy India’s group firm Brand David Communication Pvt Ltd. has dragged creative agency Dentsu Impact to court alleging that the latest campaign film for VIVO V17 starring Bollywood actor Aamir Khan was inspired by a script that it had presented to the smartphone maker earlier.
Apparently, the petitioner Ogilvy India has demanded Rs 1 Crore from the smartphone maker as its lawyer has contended that the agency would have earned Rs 1.50 Cr had they been awarded the Creative duty.
Subsequently, The Bombay High Court has ruled that the advertisement concerned is very similar to the contents of a proposal sent by Ogilvy India. Moreover, Justice BP Colabawalla has directed Vivo Mobile India Pvt Ltd to furnish a bank guarantee for Rs 1 crore from a reputed bank within one week.
Granting relief to VIVO, the Bombay HC has refused to stay the Diwali campaign considering the fact that the smartphone maker has spent around Rs 50 Cr towards creation and execution of the campaign.
According to Ogilvy, they have shared a detailed storyboard for VIVO, as it had approached one of the Ogilvy’s firms in October last year. The script was based on ‘Amusement Park”, whereas, in May this year, Vivo informed O&M that they were not going with the Ogilvy. Again in June, Vivo approached them again, after which a detailed script of the idea was sent to concerned people in VIVO. Upon noticing the advertisement as TV commercials in September, the agency has approached the court.
Bombay HC in its observation quoted that there were many similarities between the script submitted by Ogilvy and the recently launched campaign film created by Dentsu Impact, while the later maintained that it has created the advertisement independently, refusing that they didn’t have anything to do with Ogilvy India’s idea proposed to VIVO.
The disputed TVC is as following:
Sources: Mumbai Mirror