Aussie cleaning brand Koh apologises for copying small business word-for-word
Who knew CleanTok could get so messy?
Kacie Stephens, founder of Melbourne cleaning company The Big Clean Co and product brand FOR ALL, took to TikTok over the weekend after noticing something bizarre in her feed. Major household cleaning brand Koh was running paid Meta ads that mirrored her original videos almost word for word.
"I've never been copied like this. This is to the point that I literally think I'm breaking out in hives," Stephens said in her first clip, putting side-by-side snippets of her shower cleaning routine against Koh's sponsored ad.
“This business is like ten times bigger than mine, and I haven't just influenced them. They've literally copied word-for-word, shot-for-shot.”
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A day later, Stephens checked the Meta Ad Library and spotted a second clip. This one took an honest customer review originally shared inside FOR ALL's private Facebook group and recreated it line by line.
"And this business has taken it, reshot it, put their own product in it, and has it running as a paid ad in their ad account," she explained.
Followers quickly headed over to Koh’s Instagram page to call out the behaviour.
"Really disappointed to see you use AI to steal and rebrand content from a small business," one commenter posted, while another added, "Stealing other brands content and copying word for word is sad."
Koh cleaning brand responds to accusations
Koh co-founder Justin Alexander responded with a video statement to address the controversy directly.
"Kacie, the founder of FOR ALL Australia, made us aware that there are two ads in our Meta ad account that are direct copies of work that she has done," he said.
"Irrespective of who oversaw the making of those ads, we take full responsibility as founders. It's our responsibility at the end of the day."
Koh stated that an internal audit of around 400 ads was conducted and both videos were deleted. The company also donated $5,400 to the McGrath Foundation to match the total ad spend on those campaigns.
Speaking to PEDESTRIAN.TV, Stephens shared where things currently stand between both parties.
"I haven’t heard from Koh but they took the ads out of their account very quickly on the weekend which I appreciate," Stephens told PEDESTRIAN.TV.
Who knew CleanTok could get so messy?!
This story was originally published on PEDESTRIAN.TV.
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