- GWM president apologizes for copying ad
- Range Rover has recently been the subject of Chinese plagiarism
- Wei Jiangjun says company takes full responsibility
China’s Great Wall Motors recently unveiled its latest plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, celebrating the launch of the Wey V9X SUV with an advertising campaign that immediately caused internet sleuths to compare it to a previous Range Rover promotional image.
While it’s often the physical product that draws criticism from IP rights providers (we’ve explained our feelings about Range Rover imitators), the problem in this case wasn’t the Wey V9X SUV itself, but the promotional campaign that looked virtually identical to a photo Land Rover used last year to promote the Range Rover Sport.
As you can see from the image used here in the article (courtesy of Car News China), the marketing team at China’s Great Wall Motor (GWM) didn’t even try to hide the source of their inspiration, even opting for a nearly identical color palette.
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As a result, GWM president Wei Jiangjun took to social media to take full responsibility for the incident, stating, “After verification, the poster was indeed plagiarized,” he said in Mandarin and translated into English by IT-Home.
“There can be no justification,” he added, before stating that GWM would take “full legal and financial responsibility” for the mistake.
It is currently unknown whether Land Rover will take any legal action against the company, which already has several models it hopes to steal sales from the British off-road specialist, including the GWM Tank 4×4 model, which is very popular in China and is expected to head to the UK.
Analysis: History repeats itself
Land Rover has a long history with China, particularly with Jiangling Motors Corp, which was accused of copying the Range Rover Evoque with its own Landwind X7 model back in 2016.
Years later, the British manufacturer won a landmark court case that concluded that the X7 copied several unique features, causing customer confusion. As a result, it was forced to cease production.
The ruling was supposed to send a message to the broader Chinese auto industry that stricter intellectual property enforcement would be in place in the future.
While direct imitators are now less common at China’s many annual motor shows, it’s clear that many brands are still pushing the boundaries of artistic license, with Jaecoo, Xpeng and Geely recently launching electrified models that draw heavily on Land Rover’s stable.
It can be argued that because the Chinese automotive industry does not have a long history to draw on, it will naturally look to more established Western automakers for design inspiration.
But some industry insiders believe things will soon change, and several Chinese designers are already talking about the fact that their domestic auto industry is plagued by a “tendency to blindly follow trends,” according to Car News China.
In fact, things have gotten so bad that there have been cases of domestic manufacturers clashing internally over plagiarism issues, highlighting electric and emerging new energy vehicles for their homogeneity.
But protecting intellectual property rights is extremely difficult in China, as the legal system often views exterior design infringement as inherently subjective, so many cases are dropped or settled out of court.
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