Nedbank rebuked for violating imitation clause
Allan Gray has narrowly won the battle against Nedbank in a fight over whether the latter copied its advertisements.
The investment manager is unhappy about Nedbank’s ‘Bank Your Time’ advertising campaign, which aims to show that its digital banking solutions can help save time for their clients.
It includes an emotional television ad featuring an elderly man regretting the moments he missed in his life, including the birth of his child, due to his work.
News24 reports that it includes lines like ‘If I had more time, I would spend it differently. I would spend it on the things that matter’ and ‘Time is more valuable than money. Spend it wisely.’
Allan Gray last year filed a complaint with the Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB), accusing Nedbank of breaking SA’s advertising code, particularly clause 9.1: An advertiser should not copy an existing advertisement, local or international, or any part thereof in a manner that is recognisable or clearly evokes the existing concept and which may result in the likely loss of potential advertising value.
It contended that Nedbank’s storytelling and dark-toned visuals imitated its ads, along with its advertising concept of ‘Human Value of Time’, which it has been punting since 2009.
News24 reports that the ARB sided with Nedbank and dismissed Allan Gray’s complaint, but its Advertising Appeals Committee (AAC) overturned this decision in part, finding that Nedbank imitated Allan Gray’s advertising. It instructed the ARB’s members – including the large publishers and broadcasters – not to accept the Nedbank advert.
Nedbank then turned to the Final Appeal Committee of the ARB, which last week ruled against it, sticking to the AAC’s finding that the Nedbank ad evokes the Allan Gray concept.
‘(If) one saw the commercial without knowing that it was a Nedbank commercial, or without the benefit of having all the elements of this advertising campaign laid in front of it, a reasonable viewer could quite easily believe that it was an Allan Gray one. This is at the core of the imitation clause of the code,’ the ruling reads.
Article disclaimer: While we have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this article, it is not intended to provide final legal advice as facts and situations will differ from case to case, and therefore specific legal advice should be sought with a lawyer.
