A leading member of the HOPE Campaign, a pro-New Patriotic Party (NPP) group, is accusing the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) of plagiarizing its advertising concept.
Nana Yaw told Myjoyonline.com that the HOPE campaign which was conceived, designed and executed by his team as a key campaign message for the opposition NPP Presidential Candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has been taken “wholesale” by the NDC and distorted completely.
The campaign featured a Ghanaian, Kweku [the narrator] who spoke in the video encouraging Ghanaians not to abandon their hope because of the deteriorating economy, but to hold on for the NPP.
The narrator said the NPP Presidential Candidate will put smiles on the faces of Ghanaians who are getting disillusioned with the worsening living standards in the country.
According to Nana Yaw the concept has infuriated elements within the NDC who did not only bastardize the concept in the beginning but stole it completely, distorted the message for their own parochial interests.
“The story is that the NDC has plagiarized a concept which is not theirs. They started by saying the H campaign means Hopeless when the H teaser began on social media then after the release of the video, they doctored it,” Nana Yaw lamented.
Social media especially Facebook was awashed with a video made by members of the HOPE Campaign extolling the character and attributes of Mr Akufo-Addo.
Not long after the video went viral, some NDC commentators claimed the narrator in the video was not a Ghanaian and they lambasted the NPP flagbearer for not believing in Ghanaians.
Few days later, the same video, with the same narrator who supposedly is not a Ghanaian has been doctored, with the new version now edifying president Mahama and showing “all the good stuff in the video to President Mahama,” Nana Yaw complained.
Despite the striking similarity in the two videos, certain key elements will not escape the critical eye. The NPP’s video featured its party colors red, blue and white inside a giant H letter while the NDC’s version had three of the party’s colors red, white and green.
NPP HOPE
A distraught Nana Yaw said: “The whole HOPE campaign is an issue-based project and was to educate the youth to take part in politics but the NDC is twisting the whole concept.”
He found the conduct of the NDC as hugely unethical and a breach of the advertising code of ethics in Ghana.
Article 10 of the code states:
“Copyright permission shall be obtained from the original owner before any such right may be used.” Also Article 20 of the code states:
a) “Advertisements shall not unfairly discredit, disparage, or attack other products, services, ideas personalities, or organizations, or exaggerate the nature or importance of competitive differences.
b) Advertisements shall not imitate the slogans or illustrations of another advertiser in such a manner as to mislead the consumer.”
On the use of testimonials or endorsements the code emphatically states in Article 24 that “Where a testimonial or endorsement in any advertisement suggest or recommends the use of a product, the prior written consent of the model used shall be obtained before the exposure of such advertisement.”
Nana Yaw was convinced all these articles were breached in a lawless enterprise by the NDC.
An alleged distorted NPP HOPE
NDC Reaction
But a youth activist of the NDC in a reaction said they only sought to “bastardise” the pro-NPP group’s campaign.
Cederic Dzelu said what they did is “not a work of plagiarism, but rather a counter to the HOPE campaign of the NPP.”
He believes when it comes to the Presidential Candidate who has given hope to Ghanaians, it is President Mahama and not the NPP leader.
“If it is about peace it is not in the NPP because the death of the party’s chairman in the Northern Region is a case in point,” he said, adding, “To whatever angle or area the NPP points to, the NDC will counter.”
Watch the two videos below:
Alleged original NPP HOPE Campaign video:
Alleged plagiarised NDC plagiarised HOPE Campaign video:
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