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Kolkata High Court orders BloombergUTV to pull down its ongoing campaign
Kolkata High Court has issued a ruling in favour of Mint, ordering BloombergUTV to pull down its Blunt and Sharp campaign
The Kolkata High Court's judgment has given respite to Mint, the business daily by HT Media. On June 16, the court granted an interim injunction, restraining UTV News and UTV Global Broadcasting, owners of BloombergUTV, from continuing with its recently launched advertising campaign.
Mint recently took BloombergUTV to court, stating that the latter has created a campaign based on Mint's thought process, and that Mint had ownership of the original idea. It is understood that HT Media had served a legal notice on the business channel prior to approaching the High Court of Kolkata, but the channel denied any charges of infringement of IPR.
BloombergUTV, earlier this month, had launched a campaign titled 'Blunt and Sharp', which aimed to highlight the category and consumer truths within the existing business news environment. The campaign had a striking resemblance to Mint's advertisement during the business daily's Kolkata and Chennai launches last year. The ads by both companies had a mix of English and Greek language, portraying the complicated way in which business news is often delivered.
The injunction restricts BloombergUTV from printing, publishing or circulating any advertisement containing Greek symbols or words with use of English words, and clarity in business news, in the manner done by Mint.
In an earlier interaction with afaqs!, Agnello Dias, co-founder and chief creative officer, TapRoot India, had said that the brand stands out as intelligent, not clever; bold yet understated. The main effort, he had said, was on expanding the relevance of the business news genre, and to build BloombergUTV's approach of delivering clarity, lucid knowledge and usability in this genre.
BloombergUTV's campaign had a skew towards metros, and relied heavily on print publications, such as The Times of India and Hindustan Times. Apart from this, it was also eyeing new OOH mediums.
In an official statement, Benoy Roychowdhury, executive director, HT Media says, "Mint has been built on the premise of delivering clarity in business news. We have used various advertising approaches to convey this unique proposition over the last three years. The English and Greek creative used for the Kolkata and Chennai launch campaign of Mint was yet another effort in the same direction. At HT Media, we are very keen to protect our Intellectual Property Rights."