(Chinese Geely Rolls Royce ( Left) , vs The Real Rolls Royce (on the Right))
Counterfeiting of luxury goods has been around for a long time. Counterfeits of luxury goods such as LV handbags, Chanel, Dior, Armani clothing, to iPhones, iPads, etc, have been spotted all throughout the world, and it is a billion dollar industry. As China is becoming more and more of an economic power, reaching the status of 2nd largest economy in the world behind the USA , and as the standards of living are beginning to rise, the counterfeiting practices are becoming more outrageous and over the top.
Two interesting cases of new counterfeiting practices, I would like to discuss are: Geely’s counterfeit of the ultra luxury automobile, the Rolls Royce Phantom, and RenRen’s copying of Facebook.
GEELY is a chinese automobile manufacturer, and below is a link to a video, of their new luxury concept car, which shares a striking resemblance to the Rolls Royce Phantom, everything from the styling of the car, to the signature logo. China’s increase in economic power, has spawned a new class of ultra rich citizens, which are attracting luxury brands from all over the world who are trying to capture this chinese market. China has become the number 1, consumer nation of high end luxury cars, such as Bentley, Rolls Royce, Lamborghini, Ferrari etc, in 2012. And because of this, GEELY, decided to copy the Rolls Royce, and advertise their counterfeit as an original design. In the video, it is amazing how the Spokesperson of GEELY can say that their design is an original with a straight face, despite the ridiculous blatantly obvious signs of copying. See Part 2 of this blog…
Part 2- Unethical marketing…
The other case of counterfeiting I want to mention is China’s equivalent to Facebook. RenRen shares an almost exact layout and functions as Facebook, and has recently been accused of copying Facebook’s Timeline feature.
See link below:
RenRen Copies Facebook Timeline…
(check it out!, RenRen above, Facebook below)
While the real Facebook is banned by the Chinese government, Chinese companies have no problem copying Facebook, and making hundreds of millions of dollars doing so.
Counterfeiting is a multi- billion dollar a year industry, and as unethical as it may seem, it will probably get worse and worse in the future, as firms find it far easier to simply copy a proven idea rather than being innovative. And its not just counterfeit websites, or luxury cars, or luxury and bags/clothes, that consumers need to worry about: there has been numerous cases of counterfeit toothpaste, tylenol, drugs and food products such as fake eggs and even fake grapes, that have been spotted throughout China. These products are not only damaging to the brands that produce the real product, but also pose a health hazard to the chinese consumers, and also because China is the world’s largest exporter, these dangerous goods have also reached nations overseas.