I'm against counterfeiting as much as anyone. I don't steal music, and I don't walk around with a fake Rolex on my wrist.
But I guess a lot of people do like fake stuff, so they can look like a million bucks without spending that much.
Apparently this is enough of a problem that handbag maker Coach spent $10K to use a Hunter College class to create a fake student who did a fake (and exceptionally lame) YouTube video and a fake blog about losing her Coach bag, offering a $500 reward, and getting a fake bag (that smells like SHIT. LIKE SHIT! she cried) in return. They posted a pile of fliers around campus with "Heidi Cee's" lost bag, etc. etc. Eventually , it all turned into a pointer to the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition.
The folks behind PR Watch at the Center for Media and Democracy covered this, getting the tipoff from blogger Ben Kessler.
UPDATE, Friday, February 22: Here's the full report on the Hunter College initiative at the IACC site.
I've asked Coach's flack and Professor Stuart Ewen, who has criticized the initiative, if I can ask them some questions about the incident. I have to say, it sounds pretty rotten to me, but I'd like to get some answers before weighing in fully.
Ciao,
Bob.
February 21, 2008
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2 comments:
The video feels fake. I don't know who would believe it past the first minute when she talks about "counterfeit airplane parts".
Like you, I hate fake stuff. There are some items that I’ll buy that aren’t name brand, like face wash. I don’t mind buying the knock-off brand Equate v. Clearasil because the ingredients on the back they are the same. But when I purchase a high-end purse like Coach or Louis Vuitton I am paying for the brand. If I bought a knock-off and one of my friends found out I would be embarrassed because I bought the hand bag with the notion of deceiving them to believe that I owned a Coach hand bag. And that’s what this campaign did-deceived. This campaign is full of problems. First the campaign was built to retract consumers form buying fake brands but the campaign itself is fake. Second there’s no transparency and thus gives PR a bad name. How does creating a campaign about not buying fake products persuade consumers when the campaign was fake itself? The answer is that it doesn’t and bullshit must be called. And counterfeit is not the same as terrorism.
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