"Buy a fake Cartier, get a genuine criminal record" — that's the warning one of France's new anticounterfeiting ads will send when it's displayed at airports this Summer.
by Justin Fenner
"Buy a fake Cartier, get a genuine criminal record" — that's the warning one of France's new anticounterfeiting ads will send when it's displayed at airports this Summer.
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In addition to Cartier, six other luxury brands (Chanel, Christian Dior, Lacoste, Longchamp, Louis Vuitton, and Van Cleef & Arpels) created visuals for the campaign, which is backed by the French luxury goods association Comitè Colbert and the French National Anti-Counterfeiting Committee, or CNAC. The ads will be installed at 18 of France's busiest airports to warn tourists of the dangers of buying replica luxury goods.
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France counts possession of fake designer goods as a criminal offense, and owning a knockoff Dior bag can be punished by fines of up to €300,000 (just over $300,000 at current exchange) or a three-year prison sentence. Despite these harsh punishments, counterfeiting still costs French luxury houses $7.5 billion in lost revenue every year.
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"Every time you buy a fake Lacoste, a fake Longchamp, a fake Chanel, you are shooting yourself in the foot on the values you hold dear," said Dior CEO Sidney Toledano.
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Take a look at two of the ads here in the gallery.