Recently, here I talked about an advertising project I was working on for my advertising class along with my group members.  The project consisted of three advertisements for yellow pages and Internet directory, a report that explained our advertising concept and a PowerPoint presentation so we could show to the entire class what we came up with. I already talked about the nightmare I went through because of this whole assignment. Yes, the group I was in was one of the worst I ever had. Yet I must confess that our advertisements had full originality.  The image we used in it was of puppies that belonged to our ad designer and the layout was plain.

Our group number was 14 which meant that we had to wait a long period of time before we could go up on the stage to do our presentation. Meanwhile, we sat and watched what others did. There was one group who had one of the best advertisements. It looked perfect! Yet, it was heartbreaking! Why? Because the image they used in it was stolen from istockphoto whose logo was still attached to it with a white cross mark. My professor made no attempt to pinpoint it. Instead she went on complementing it. Then came another group. Their advertisement also looked great, but their slogan was stolen! It was from Allstate: “You are in good hands!” This time again, my professor really didn’t bother to say anything against it.  The last robber group bluntly told the class that the symbol in their advertisement was copied from Aflec. On hearing it, my professor simply smiled.

By the way, in the assignment instruction file it was written that all images for the advertisements were supposed to be bought or copyright free. Interestingly, in the syllabus it is written that anyone who is caught plagiarizing would get an F in the course. But it seems that the reality is quite different. My professor had a blast going over a bunch of stolen ideas, symbol, slogan and image. This only proved that she was letting the plagiarism happen openly. None of these students will be penalized for the wonderful copied work they had. But others who did not copy now know that it is really okay to start going with the flow. However, I am out of this league. I strictly believe in having originality in what I do and I will continue to stand by it.