RI Tourism Vendor Who Did Iceland Video Sued for Stealing
Thursday, October 27, 2016
They're at it again.
IndieWhip, the firm that brought you images of Iceland in the botched $5 million Rhode Island tourism campaign fallout, has been accused by a Boston-based company of "stealing their trade secrets and creating a rival business," as reported by David Harris for the Boston Business Journal.
"In a federal lawsuit filed in Boston on Monday, Project Repat said a production company it hired to help with online advertising, called IndieWhip, launched a competing firm called American Quilt a year after its contract was terminated. The lawsuit names the company along with IndieWhip founders Chandler R. Quintin, Paul M. Kettelle and Brian Bruzzi," wrote Harris.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTHarris reported that IndieWhip did not respond to request for comment. Read more here.
RI's IndieWhip Controversy, Boston Parallels
GoLocal reported of IndieWhip's role the botched campaign in March:
On Monday, the new state tourism logo was unveiled and it was met with harsh criticism by many Rhode Islanders via social media, but that adverse response may have been the highlight of the launch. By Tuesday afternoon a new video released by Commerce Corp was found to have a featured scene that was actually footage from Iceland. Clumsily, the video was deleted by Commerce from YouTube without any explanation where it had been posted.
IndieWhip, who initially apologized for the error, then decided to make fun of the situation, which saw Rhode Island tourism's head of marketing Betsy Wall fired for the embarrassing rollout.
Meanwhile, Boston Business Journal's Harris writes of IndieWhip's lawsuit.
According to the suit, IndieWhip allegedly attempted to mask their involvement in American Quilt by creating shell companies and using pseudonyms in American Quilt's online communications. One of those pseudonyms is "Joe McMillan," an unethical character on the AMC television series "Halt and Catch Fire" who steals intellectual property to unfairly compete with his former friends.
Related Slideshow: National Press Critique RI’s Embarrassing Tourism Campaign - 2016
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