When Plagiarism Backfires: GWM's Apology for Copying Land Rover's Iconic Ad

The best print ads are designed to make the viewer double-take, be it through striking imagery or clever visual puns. But a recent ad for GWM's new Wey V9X SUV has been turning heads for all the wrong reasons.

When the car manufacturer announced the Wey V9X SUV, fans immediately noticed that an accompanying ad bore a striking resemblance to an image used by Land Rover to promote the Range Rover Sport last year. And by striking resemblance, we mean the image looks exactly the same.

GWM's ad (left) vs Land Rover's (right)

Red smoke in the background? Check. Well-dressed Asian man pointing his hand reverently toward the bonnet of an SUV? Check. Said bonnet protruding from the right-hand side of the frame? Check.

Yep, the similarities are striking enough that the chairman of GWM has been forced to apologize. As spotted by our sister site TechRadar, 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 to English by IT-Home. “There can be no justification,” he added, before going on to claim that GWM would take “full legal and financial responsibility” for the slip-up.

This isn't the first plagiarism scandal we've seen hit the design world in recent months. From Pickmon's shady practices to the minefield that is AI and copyright, artists and designers need to be more vigilant than ever when it comes to having their homework copied.