Allegation of plagiarism makes football heads turn red

The Sporttip campaign is featured in the current print edition of Werbewoche. "Whether young or old, banker or rocker - for the next few weeks, everyone will only have football on their minds. This is also illustrated by the key visual from the advertising agency's booth. The currently highly visible campaign advertises the betting options at Sporttip."

People with football heads - the idea sounds familiar to Daniel Donati, Creative Director at the agency Zürich Tokio. Too familiar, he thinks. The current Sporttip campaign is a "nice, almost cheeky plagiarism from the advertising agency". Zürich Tokio had already used the idea in 2008 for Radio 11, which was launched on the occasion of the European Championship. The subjects were used as TV commercials, posters and flyers.

Confronted with the accusations, Reto Dürrenberger, Managing Director and Partner of the advertising agency Werbeanstalt, is surprised. He made a detailed statement to Werbewoche.ch about the two campaigns:

"We always have our creative concepts checked in advance to see whether a similar concept has already been realized, and not just in the same industry. We didn't discover these subjects on search engines or in the archives of the usual communication portals. And we couldn't, because this campaign cannot be found with the criteria "football" and "in/as head". Try it yourself. The Zurich Tokyo campaign was realized six years ago for a small radio station. The agency in question used well-known musicians who were only recognizable thanks to their hairstyles because their faces were replaced by a football. The resolution "Rhythm of Football" - English and not German - only makes a secondary reference to football. Our "Football in the head" campaign for Sporttip, on the other hand, visualizes 1:1 what happens to the Swiss during the World Cup: They only have football on their minds. Of course, we very much regret this similarity. But we are also not aware of any guilt. These are two different concepts that are very different in terms of creative idea, target group, industry and area of application/reach."

As always with accusations of plagiarism, readers are called upon to form their own opinions. If football is not the only thing on your mind at the moment.

Thomas Häusermann