LAHORE: A 40-second commercial featuring India’s Kareena Kapoor endorsing Olivia hair colour brand owned by Pakistan’s Maskatiya Industries seems to have stirred up a new controversy between the two countries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRFAWIMVjpY
The ad aired during the transmission of Pakistan Super League (PSL) was a frame to frame copy of an ad released in August 2016 by BBlunt Salon Secret, a brand owned by the Mumbai-based Godrej Group. The only thing different in the ad was the product, everything else was the same.
The Olivia brand has been endorsed in the past by bollywood celebrities like Bipasha Basu, Nargis Fakhri, Aditi Rao Hydari and Shruti Haasan, states the companies website, however, no mention was made of Kareena Kapoor.
On the other hand, Godrej Group in a statement to an Indian media outlet said that it does not have any business relationship with Maskatiya Industries and the ad was a direct case of plagiarism over which it would be taking appropriate action. According to sources the company has served a legal notice to Mastakia and ensured the removal of the commercial that garnered millions of views from Olivia’s Facebook and Youtube pages.
This is outrageous really how can a firm take ad of an Indian firm and just change the label to something else? Whoever saw that ad thought that Olivia hired Karina Kapoor for the ad, which was not the case. Infact Olivia (Maskatiya) didn’t spend a penny on the ad just changed the brand.
If SECP or other bodies won’t take any action against Olivia (Maskatiya) group then this will be criminal as Olivia brought a lot of shame to Pakistan and Pakistanis in front of India and has made all of us a laughing stock!
This was first spotted and investigated by Babar Khan Javed (the Technology Editor for Campaign Asia-Pacific based in Singapore) and reported here: https://www.campaignasia.com/article/india-and-pakistan-at-loggerheads-over-bblunt-plagiarism-row/443453
Even though Khan is a Pakistani, he went toe to toe with one of Pakistan’s richest business oligarch’s and fearlessly exposed their white collar crimes and corruption.
Kindly give credit where it is due.
Without journalists like Babar and Jon Snow (Channel Four), corrupt business owners cannot be held accountable.