Hta Apoplectic Over Chaitra Coke Ad

Pepsi's advertising agency, HTA (Hindustan Thomson Associates), has moved the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) and Advertising Agencies Association (AAAI) alleging plagiarisation of its idea by Coke.

In different missives to ASCI and AAAI, HTA, which has provided details of Pepsi's ad film, has stated that the jingle in Coke's latest commercial --- Coke Ala re Ala- has been plagiarised from Pepsi's commercial featuring Sachin Tendulkar.

HTA has said, "It is amply clear that this jingle (Ala Ala re) was conceived of by us and produced well before Coca Cola and Chaitra Leo Burnett. It is undeniable then that Coca Cola and Chaitra have plagiarised our creative output and caused tremendous harm to our clients M/s Pepsi."

 

HTA also points out that Coke went ahead to lift Pepsi's ad featuring Tendulkar and released it much before Pepsi.

The advertisement was released during the Princess Diana memorial cricket match played in England.

Though Coke was unavailable for comments, sources in Chaitra Leo Burnett, the ad agency managing the Coke account, admitted that ASCI has sent it a show cause notice asking for an explanation on the allegations levelled by HTA.

"We are still finalising a reply, but HTA's allegations do not hold much water as the ad concerned relies on a Marathi folk song, `Govinda ala re', made famous by film stars. Nobody can claim to hold a copyright to something which is generic in nature."

But, points out ad filmmaker Prahlad Kakkar, who made the Pepsi film featuring Tendulkar, "The issue here is not of legality, but shows bankruptcy of ideas. Earlier when the competition between Pepsi and Coke was hotting up, the creative juices were really flowing and the sky was the limit. But Coke's latest act of stealing Pepsi's idea just shows there is no creativity involved. According to Kakkar, the `Sachin ala re' Pepsi ad had been shot in May and was slated to be released during the upcoming Sharjah tournament.

"But now, everybody in the ad world would be paranoid about security which would tell on creativity."