Rover Range Rover Responds to Wei Jianjun's Apology

On March 7, #Land Rover Range Rover responds to Wei Jianjun's apology# topped the Weibo hot search. Range Rover stated that sincerity and responsibility are the best endorsements, and they are the most cherished values of the Range Rover brand. Upholding originality, wishing Great Wall Motor better and better.

Event Recap: On March 5, Wey officially announced that Wei Jianjun, Chairman of Great Wall Motor, would personally endorse the Wey V9X. The official promotional poster featured a red-to-black gradient background, a low-angle shot, and a side-profile shot of the person touching the vehicle’s front end. However, a Land Rover original designer posted a comparative image on social media, directly accusing the poster of highly replicating the composition, color scheme, lighting, pose of the person, and vehicle placement from their own work created for the Land Rover Range Rover Sport—calling it “1:1 scale plagiarism.”

Looking at the visuals, both use a red-to-black gradient background color, the celebrities are standing on the left, with the car's front on the right, shot from a low angle, and the lighting effect on the car body is very similar. The slight difference is in the hand gestures: Wei Jianzhu places his hand on the Weilai V9X, while Li Yunrui's hand is in the air.

On March 6, Wei Jianjun released a video apology, stating that after verification, the poster was indeed plagiarized, and there could be no justification. He apologized to Land Rover, the designer of the original poster, and netizens. Wei Jianjun said that Great Wall Motor is willing to bear all the legal and economic responsibilities arising from this. He stated that the main responsibility for this issue was due to lax review, and "I will also deeply reflect on management and processes to resolutely prevent plagiarism." Currently, Great Wall Motor and the WEY brand have removed the related posters.

Wei brand CEO Zhao Yongpo responded, saying, "This was a serious failure on our part, and there is no excuse. We sincerely apologize. While creative ideas can be inspired by others, originality must always be respected. Great Wall Motor has always adhered to the principle of integrity in business and treats both users and vehicle manufacturing with sincerity. As the brand leader, I am the primary responsible party and failed to fulfill my duties. Here, I sincerely apologize to the Land Rover brand and the designer of the original work, and we have taken down the related promotional materials. I also owe an apology to all users who follow WEY. Thank you for your oversight and continued support."

The Wey V9X poster plagiarism incident has brought profound warnings to the automotive and brand marketing industry. High-end brand building must be based on originality; blindly imitating luxury brands will only expose creative shortcomings and harm brand image. The risk of materials endorsed by corporate executives and founders is higher, requiring the strictest review process to avoid deeply binding personal credibility with corporate risks. In the current environment, creative plagiarism can be easily exposed; similar composition, lighting, and layout can be deemed as infringement. Enterprises must establish pre-review and risk control mechanisms to prevent risks from the source. This crisis also proves that the optimal public relations approach is to quickly admit the mistake, avoid shifting blame, and have the highest-level responsible person take responsibility. Enterprises should learn from this incident, strengthen originality awareness, improve review processes, and adhere to compliance standards, in order to build a brand more steadily.

Weichai V9X is the new flagship model to be launched by Weichai, built on the Guiyuan platform, equipped with a 2.0T PHEV system, with the engine's maximum power of 175 kW. The new vehicle may be based on an 800V parallel hybrid architecture, with the NEDC pure electric driving range divided into 240km and 363km. In terms of dimensions, the Weichai V9X has a length of 5299mm, width of 2025mm, and height of 1825mm, with a wheelbase of 3150mm, and adopts a 6-seat layout.