Bang In The Middle calls out former client Medanta for using rejected campaign idea

Independent ad agency Bang In The Middle spoke out against former client Medanta, a healthcare provider, for using the agency’s campaign idea now after having rejected the same when the two were in a partnership from November 2022 to November 2023.

“One of the campaigns that the agency presented earlier and was spitefully rejected and thrown out, has now been raised from the dead and executed as is by the client. The same layouts. The same lines. The same art. The same everything. The people who once spat on it and threw it out, have now had a change of heart…” reads the agency’s LinkedIn post.

Bang In The Middle goes on to ask what turned the rejected bad idea into a good one, how the same team from the client changed its mind now, and whether the brand can use the idea which, after the termination of the relationship, belongs to the client.

The agency took to social media after it could not reach an amicable solution with its former client. “We never wanted to take this legal or into public. But when we reached out to them to amicably settle this, they rudely told us to take a walk, and challenged us to do whatever we can, because they are a giant and we are but a pipsqueak,” writes Bang In The Middle.

Ownership of an idea is a question that became the talk of ad land’s proverbial town in 2022 when MullenLowe Lintas Group’s former chairman and CCO Amer Jaleel lambasted financial services company Motilal Oswal for the “blatant and brazen copy of one’s creative mehnat”.

Motilal Oswal’s 2022 ad was a replica of the 2017 ad the agency had made for the company. Ramnik Chhabra, Motilal Oswal’s former executive director and head of marketing (he held these posts when the ’17 ad was made) had commented on Jaleel’s LinkedIn post.

"Acknowledge that while the original idea has come from the agency; it has been built by us together. Also assumed that since we have compensated the agency for the idea over previous campaigns; it is the clients property and can be used for a campaign created in-house.”

“No external creative agency was used. We created script/situations, and a freelance production house added some more & executed the film,” he clarified about the 2022 ad.

While the ownership of the creative idea rears its head on both occasions, there is a major differentiator. In the case of Bang In The Middle and Medanta, the client had rejected the idea. 

Bang In The Middle has made its intentions clear. “So what do you do when you have a problem like Medanta? Make it public and go legal. We have done both.”