Audi's Andy Lau Xiaoman ad copied a Douyin creator's script

On May 21, 2022, FAW-Volkswagen Audi released 'Today is Xiaoman, and a little fullness is enough' (今日小满，人生小满就好), a Xiaoman solar-term film starring Andy Lau. The launch was a hit: more than 100,000 reposts and likes within ten hours, and more than five million likes on Lau's own Douyin post.

The same evening, Douyin creator Beida Mange (北大满哥) posted a video showing the ad's script matched his own May 21, 2021 video line for line — including the poem about Xiaoman. The next morning Audi's official Weibo responded: it apologized to Lau, Mange and all parties, admitted 'inadequate supervision and lax review', said the film was proposed and executed by creative agency M&C Saatchi (上思广告), ordered the agency to handle the matter, and pulled the film from all official channels until the facts were clarified.

The case became China's textbook agency-plagiarism scandal. M&C Saatchi, founded in 1995 with clients such as BYD, Baojun, Porsche and SAIC-GMAC, took the blame publicly. The irony that stung hardest was thematic: an ad about being content with a little had itself been borrowed wholesale.