Malaysia 4As disqualifies two Dentsu Utama Kancils winners for plagiarism, agency resigns from industry association in protest
Two pieces of winning work at Malaysia’s most prestigious advertising awards show the Kancils have been disqualified for plagiarism.
“Professional Man”, a campaign for internet privacy awareness firm Web Privacy Watch by Dentsu Utama, “contained almost identical images” to the work of Swedish artist Erik Johansson, an optical illusion piece called The Architect, ruled ad industry body Malaysia 4As, the organiser of the Kancil Awards.
The same is true of “Cross River Gorilla”, an anti-poaching campaign for World Wildlife Fund in Indonesia by Dentsu Utama that bears similarities to the work of a British design student, the 4As determined.
“An investigation was initiated by the 4As following various complaints of the obvious similarities to the original creations,” said Tan Kien Eng, Kancils jury chair and CEO of advertising agency Leo Burnett Malaysia.
“This action is being taken to remedy a contentious situation while upholding the principles of eligibility for the Kancil Awards,” Tan said.
The agency’s award-winning work was developed after the work created by Erik Johansson and 21 year-old designer Tom Anders Watkins, the 4As confirmed, so the awards will be withdrawn.
The original creators have shown proof that their works were posted much earlier than the work by Dentsu Utama, Tan confirmed.
Anders Watkins complained about his work being copied in a social media post late December. “Hey, @dentsuaegis @WWF I think you may have blatantly copied my design in your award winning poster,” he tweeted. His complaint was picked up by a number of news outlets.
“Cross River Gorilla” claimed won 26 bronze awards and three silvers at the Kancils, while “Professional Man” won six bronzes. The awards helped Dentsu Utama win agency of the year at the Kancils last month, although that accolade is expected to now be attributed to another agency.
The investigation followed questions raised in two stories by Mumbrella following the announcement of the Kancils winners late last year.
“We take a serious view of work that is deemed sufficiently close to works created originally elsewhere,” Tan commented. “We must maintain a high level of integrity and credibility as the industry’s official body in Malaysia. The decision to disqualify the awards for both creative works was not taken lightly as we had explored all possible scenarios. In the end, the facts were overwhelmingly in favour of the original creators.”
Update: As a result of the ruling, Dentsu Utama has resigned from the 4As in protest, describing the decision to withdraw the awards as “unfounded”. The agency said in a statement shared with Mumbrella this afternoon:
On 29 December Dentsu Utama was accused of plagiarism, a claim it strongly disputes. Responding to these accusations, Dentsu Utama began an internal investigation supported by independent legal advice. The conclusion was that such accusations are unfounded.
Throughout this period Dentsu Utama has been openly cooperating with the Association of Accredited Advertising Agents (4As) on this issue. Dentsu Utama, without being given the opportunity to defend itself, has now been informed that eight of the Kancils awards related to the WWF Anti-Poaching Cross River Gorilla, and the Web Privacy Watch – Professional Man campaigns won in December 2015, will be revoked. A decision which we believe is unsupported.
As a result Dentsu Utama and its representatives will resign from the 4As with immediate effect.
Dentsu Utama will continue its dialogue with the individual artists on this issue and continue to supports its opinion that the allegations are unfounded.
No further statements will be made at this moment in time.
Dentsu Aegis has confirmed with Mumbrella that the ruling will not bear any consequences for the staff responsible for the work.
The ruling comes the week after the 4As decided that a campaign by Dentsu Utama for Uyee Chinese Medical Company was “not sufficiently similar” to a project for a Chinese skateboard decoration firm Challenge Skateboard to constitute copyright infringement, and so warrant disqualification from the competition.
This year was the 20th anniversary of the Kancil Awards. Last year’s Kancils were also troubled by allegations of copycatting, with BBDO Malaysia’s work for KFC appearing to resemble work made for Burger King in German four years previously.
How utterly embarrassing
ReplyNo… dont take away the bricks from the chlldren…
https://goo.gl/vUqDRu
ReplyWow, this is a regional disgrace…hope clients have taken note of these crooked shenanigans.
Still no official word from the man behind it all….the regional CCO Ted Lim ? Why?
Clearly some lazy untalented jerks have been scouring the websites like behance etc looking for ideas to rip off, win awards and use it to hop to a higher paying job.
If I were the CEO Id be making sure they don’t stick around my agency with an attitude like that.
ReplyWell done Robin/Mumbrella for pursuing this.
Scam is one thing, and there is an argument that can be made for scam entries, but this is cheating plain and simple. Hugely unethical to take a creator’s idea (and execution) and pass it off as your own.
By keeping quiet, Dentsu has missed an opportunity here to drive the response. Still not too late. Fire those responsible.
ReplyOMG
Replysuch ashame to have an agency in the country.. Should banne this agency for participating any contest for the next 5 years…
ReplyTotally. Should fire those who responsible for copying these artworks.
ReplyWell done Mumbrella. This was a egregious case of theft. Was Campagin Brief asleep? They seem to have missed this until just now.
@Michael Please can you tell me what the argument would be for entering scam ads in any circumstance? I am wracking my brain to figure out what your justification is.
ReplyNo longer “Agency of the year”. No longer creative. No longer respected. Top management must resign. It’s the honourable thing to do. Think about the whole creative team’s reputation that they have ruined. What a way to start 2016, Dentsu.
ReplyThe integrity of the industry is at stake here. Creative team responsible for copying must resign. ECD must be sacked for turning a blind eye. Regional CCO should publicly apologise to the original creators, then resign.
ReplyGood Artists copy, Great Artists steal.
~ Pablo Picasso
ReplyCreative team and especially ECD should resign immediately.
ReplyEveryone knew the KANCIL awards is nothing but a scam where agencies pays off the organizer to give them awards so they could justify their relevancy to their clients. There are phantom ads which never came into print nor broadcast but appeared just in time for the awards. There are so much discrepancy in this event that it no longer holds any meaning in winning this award, just a seat at a table for a night of free booze whether your agency wins or not. Business as usual tomorrow, Dentsu.
Reply@shameful – I said there is an argument. I didn’t say I agree with it. Scam, for all its faults, is usually original and creative (albeit for no actual client). For these examples though there is no justification.
ReplyThat’s why I gave up on the ad world after 36 years bro !…should have moved on earlier when I smelled the bad stuff …
ReplyHave anyone checked if WWF Indonesia actually endorsed the campaign or is a legit client , even if pro-bono?…In their www there is no such thing as anti poaching …now that’s interesting…
ReplyHi adcriticworld,
Just checking on this. Statement from WWF Indonesia to follow shortly.
Cheers,
ReplyRobin – Mumbrella
All these political a-holes only know one thing…maintain a brazen silence and pray it all fizzles away, thanks to the 24 hour news cycle.
They won’t fire anyone now, because that would be an admission of guilt…this is a tough one to wash one’s hands off of, because the celebratory photo published everywhere has the regional CCO and ECD pumping their fists in the air like kids. This was not a careless mistake folks, but blessed by people right at the top.
Does it really matter? Anyone who puts any of this work in their book should never be employed…the regional cco and ecd are an embarrassment to the profession …. if i was a client Id feel a bit icky taking any advice from creatives with pretty low standards in principles….and work.
ReplyKnow the Japanese and the fine people of Dentsu, honor is a top priority. I wonder of they will react to this? Regarding Ted Lim, who is a veteran, he should have known if work was original or not. What do you have to say Ted Lim?
ReplyNot happy?
ReplyDentsu-e us.
*drop mic*
Hv seen these many times. Most times the creatives were graduates from saito or mia.
ReplyChange the awards. Introduce ‘the golden cats’ to award the best Malaysian copycats of the year. Stop pretending to be creative. Every good piece is stolen.
ReplyWait for a proper explanation from Dentsu Utama. Maybe they have solid reasons? Just wait and see.
ReplyI suppose you could throw some money at the original creators and get them to say that dentsu made a deal to use their original ideas…and then add their names to the credits. This calms down the interwebz, and makes justice seem to be done…to some extent.
But nothing detracts from the fact that these morons tried to nick an idea off the internet thinking no one would notice…especially if they won an agency of the year award…lol!!
ReplyThumbs up to Mumbrella and Robin for bravely exposing the (long known) deceit from “big name” agencies in their relentless pursuit of creative awards. Dentsu is one of many but any agency who can look at the work and think that it’s “completely unfounded”, is either in dire need of medical help or incredibly arrogant in their myopia. Shame on Dentsu.
ReplyZero credibility. Zero face. Good luck to any client who wants to touch you.
The creatives for all three entries are more or less the same… with that many heads you would expect at least one person with something original. I guess they went with ‘with this many heads we can screen through the net faster to find something to steal’. Better luck next time.
Reply‘Dentsu Aegis has confirmed with Mumbrella that the ruling will not bear any consequences for the staff responsible for the work.’
sure, as long as they never leave dentsu utama because i doubt they will ever get hired elsewhere.
ReplyWhat solid reasons? It’s like saying Lance Armstrong has a solid reason for doping. You can’t defend plagiarism. In university you get a straight F. Some people/agencies just have zero integrity. And that’s it.
ReplyI just wonder about judges.. they never know about this before give a mark?
ReplyGood on this years Kancil 4A’s team to restore the credibility and standards of the Kancil Awards.
ReplyLets not forget the year before too – KFC’s ad which won too. https://www.mumbrella.asia/2015/06/malaysian-kfc-ad-slammed-for-copycatting-after-kancils-best-in-show-win-claims-cannes-gold/
I’m so surprised the CEO of Kancil hasn’t resigned yet from this constant failure and lack of oversight for the award entry. So anyone can just submit a copy then win, before returning the award back to Kancil? Seriously what are the jury and CEO doing besides rubbing shoulders during breaks? Gee.
ReplyWhats the big deal? It’s not surprised to hv similar design. Having a competition like this is merely a waste of time.
ReplyPlagirism is everywhere. even in comics. artist rip-offs panel to panel. movies too, shots, theme, story has been recycle over and over again. Music, rhythms and tunes has been recycle and recycle. ~yawn, pop culture. sigh.
well most of you ad people already know what KANCIL is about, so ’nuff said.
sad thing here is, Dentsu got caught. Some more Dentsu MALAYSIA, here’s another one for Malaysia, brothers and sisters.
and it’s also typical of us to step on people when they are down.
definitely alot of careers will be destroyed. all i can say is, don’t do it again, and there is always hope to recover.
can’t wait to see what Dentsu have to say.
ReplyHow likely are we to see these ‘ads’ in real life? On the train, bus, or newspapers? I mean really? Agency produced ads like this just for the sake of winning awards, yeah by using someone else’s work. How irony.
ReplyPretty sure I’ve seen that overlapping-circles style done with the Twitter logo and the Apple logo. Does that mean the non-Dentsu gorilla design was blatant plagiarism too?
Reply@Bill – not sure the examples you refer to, but the answer would be no. Using overlapping circles is the idea. How you appropriate the idea is the execution. Adapting an idea – as is the case of Twitter or whoever – is not necessarily plagiarism. However, taking an idea and an execution and repeating them almost line for line is clear plagiarism. To then enter it into an award show is cheating.
ReplyI admire Dentsu work when I was a collage student
and admire how ‘Creative’ getting kancil awards
Now… never trusted again big agency or any creative award that love to copycat and lazy doing research
ReplyI don’t think Dentsu Utama handled the issue very well.
ReplyIt’s reputation is now in the dumps and it’s not even Cannes ffs…
The ones responsible should be held accountable and dismissed, preserving the reputation of the agency.
But quitting the 4As and defending the egos of these big headed not-good-enoughs? Good luck finding your way into pitches DU.
Bill, it’s the same exact gorilla. They only bothered to flip it horizontally. If they made a parrot out of it there may be still room for argument. But this…
ReplySame as 2020 Tokyo Olimpic logo? Better to check your work at Google image search before you will submit the award.
ReplyHave your say