AAMI considers options over Big W staff videos
Rhonda character in Big W staff video
Insurance company AAMI is reviewing a new ad campaign by Woolworths-owned discount retailer Big W to see if it infringes on its copyright.
The new Big W ‘Cha-Ching’ campaign involves – according to Woolworths – a “light-hearted staff competition inviting stores to creatively represent the ‘cha-ching’ on video.”
A number of these videos have been posted on YouTube.
Richard Riboni, executive manager of marketing at AAMI, told Mumbrella that the company’s legal team was reviewing the videos to see if they infringed on his brand’s copyright.
He said that the staff videos potentially constituted a legal “grey area” since they are not hosted on Big W’s official YouTube channel – like Big W’s other ads.
“If they are not directly linked to the brand campaign, it is hard to argue that they are using our IP to promote their product,” he said.
A video by Big W’s Highpoint branch uses the track ‘Everyone’s a winner’ by Hot Chocolate, which features in the new brand ad, and references the Rhonda character from the AAMI ads.
Comments beneath the video have been disabled.
Another video with references to the Rhonda campaign, which was reported by Mumbrella over the weekend, has been taken down.
Big W commented: “We have not been contacted by any external organisations regarding the videos, but if any get in touch we’d be happy to discuss the efforts of our staff.”
Earlier this week, Big W launched a brand campaign, the first from its new agency Saatchi & Saatchi.
Oh why would you bother sounding like an arse with “legal team” “grey areas” and “IP issues”?
Calling it an ad campaign is also drawing a pretty long bow.
Be flattered the AAMI message was so impactful and memorable that they paid homage to it in an internal marketing comp.
Then after that 3 seconds has passed, move on with your professional life.
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Probably more embarrassing for BigW than infringing for AAMI.
Perhaps the client should have given a better brief to its employees. And the ad? Essentially a sing-a-long with the bouncing ball? Really???
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infringement???? oooh does AAMI have copyrights on a fat woman with sunglasses and a mohito????
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t’s not gonna work at the Checkout sorry IMHO
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meh
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OMG i’m so embarrassed to work for them right now…the ‘Everyone’s A Winner’ tagline is great but then they went and stuffed it up making it look cheap and tacky by adding the ‘Cha-ching’… And AAMI need to get over themselves!!
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