France Fights Counterfeit Luxury Goods With New Ad Campaign

by Jada Wong | 10:13 am, May 30th, 2012

France is doing its part to combat counterfeit goods with a new ad campaign.

Luxury good association Comité Colbert — along with French customs and the French National Anti-Counterfeiting Committee (CNAC) — produced seven ads aimed to combat the buying and carrying of counterfeit goods. Each ad features an item from a luxury house (Cartier, Chanel, Christian Dior, Lacoste, Longchamp, Louis Vuitton, and Van Cleef & Arpels participated) and a catchy slogan like “Buy a fake Cartier, get a genuine criminal record”.

The ads point out that anyone buying or carrying a counterfeit product in France can be sent to jail for up to three years and fined € 300,000, or around $373,140. This seems a bit extreme! In the States, anyone that knowingly sells counterfeit goods can be fined and jailed, but there’s no law against people buying or carrying them.

WWD reports that 10,000 posters will be displayed in France’s 18 airports beginning in June, just in time for the summer tourism season. According to the CNAC, the counterfeit industry costs France around $7.5 billion in lost revenue each year.

We admit the ads are clever, but they’re also kind of silly, which perhaps takes away from the gravity of the campaign. Or maybe something was lost in translation? Check out a couple of the ads below, and tell us if you think they’re effective: