AUCKLAND, Today: Ben Cochrane, MD of Auckland agency BMG, has provided further detail to yesterday’s M+AD/NZ Herald story alleging Premier Beehive had infringed the agency’s intellectual property (scroll down for the link to the original stories), provided originally via an unsolicited pitch.
Cochrane elaborates: “Beehive [a global food giant] claimed the tagline has been in use for a while – which is a red herring.
“The issue isn’t the tagline. We recommended to leave that as is. The issue is the whole creative direction being copied.
“They had been executing through a series of bad puns, one of which crossed an ethical line, and we advocated for a completely different approach – one which was to leverage the only good bit of the ads which was the tagline and make the food appear more delicious and at the forefront.
“Even when we asked them to ring me personally – they responded through Australian lawyers.”
“We don’t make a habit of approaching people out the blue but this one was so obvious in terms of needing some help.
“Their current headlines and overall strategy are a Xerox of our pitch, which was very different to what they had done previously. It’s just a shame we couldn’t have been involved in the final creative direction!
“Essentially it’s about ethics – they had every opportunity to get in touch. And didn’t. Even when we asked them to explain and ring me personally – they responded through Australian lawyers.
“If they would have just been open about liking the direction (which they obviously did) it would have been OK.”
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