Exclusive: Plagiarism accusation against Saatchi & Saatchi

The stumbling block is the fork hand that the Zurich agency Saatchi & Saatchi presented to the public a few days ago. Ulrich Tillmanns, Managing Director of the Düsseldorf agency Ogilvy & Mather, was amazed when one of his employees presented him with the fork hand. corresponding contribution on Werbewoche.ch. The idea of a fork in the shape of a hand seemed too familiar to him. Tillmanns told Werbewoche.ch that this idea had already been developed last year and launched in Germany months ago. We're talking about the "Helfende Hände" campaign for Düsseldorfer Tafel e.V., which was presented as part of the Düsseldorf Gourmet Festival from August 24 to 26, 2012. The company has been working with the charitable organization for almost ten years, supporting its ideas as part of pro bono budgets. The Düsseldorfer Tafel distributes surplus food from retailers to those in need; every month, the hunger of 28,000 people is satisfied in this way.

Fork in physical form

In fact, the two subjects look confusingly similar: a fork in the shape of a hand asking - or begging - for a gift. In contrast to Saatchi & Saatchi's version, however, Ogilvy & Mather Germany did not stop with the subject: "The fork is physically produced in cooperation with cutlery manufacturer WMF, and the 10,000 pieces produced are handed out at events for every meal as part of the Tafel promotion," Tillmanns told Werbewoche.ch. Anyone who keeps the piece of cutlery automatically donates the amount previously left as a deposit in favor of the organization Tafel e.V. This fork is now anchored in the public.

But even the charitable backgrounds of Tafel e.V. and Unicef don't make Tillmanns forget one thing: "Agencies are part of the idea business. Only ideas count there - regardless of whether they are voluntary or highly paid commitments." They plan to submit the fork to awards, he says, so they can't simply accept that the idea will reappear in a campaign a few months after launch. Tillmanns can imagine two scenarios: "First, the idea was stolen and adapted for the Swiss market. Secondly: Both agencies had the same idea at different times". In both cases, the company wants to take action and contact the Zurich agency. If no agreement is reached in this way, the company will take legal action and sue for injunctive relief.

"The accusation of plagiarism is untenable".

Saatchi & Saatchi clearly rejects the accusations of plagiarism from Germany. The agency developed both the content idea and the implementation idea absolutely independently and at no time used any elements from other agencies or campaigns, Marlon Chng, Client Service Director & Senior Digital Expert told Werbewoche.ch. Although the agency has always aimed to develop unique creations and campaigns, Saatchi & Saatchi is not immune to the fact that its own ideas may bear a certain resemblance to those of other agencies anywhere in the world. This is also true in the case of the finger fork: The idea is obvious, because a fork with its five fingers is basically reminiscent of a hand. In this specific case, the creative achievement lies less in the idea than in its creative implementation. After five minutes of Internet research, one realizes that the basic idea of the hand fork is anything but new. Chng backs up this statement with various illustrative examples of commercial applications of the hand-shaped piece of cutlery.

Chng, who is also a lecturer in communications law at Simakom Lucerne, concludes: "We are therefore firmly of the opinion that there can be no talk of plagiarism here in any way, since the idea of the "finger fork" also existed long before Ogilvy & Mather's campaign and was implemented in numerous ways. For example, after our press release, a friendly agency sent us a picture with a greeting to say, with a wink and on a sporting basis, that it already existed in a similar form in Switzerland - back in 2006." (Image: See below).

But the accusation is also untenable if you look at the whole thing from a temporal dimension, adds Chng. The earliest moment when one could have learned about the Tafel campaign via a press release was August 16, 2012. As early as August 3, however, Saatchi & Saatchi contacted Unicef and informed it about the idea, which had been developed at the beginning of the year (the conversation with Unicef is available to Werbewoche.ch).

How the fork dispute will continue remains to be seen. Both parties seem pretty sure of their case and unwilling to make concessions to the other side.

Thomas Häusermann