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New Delhi: Tata Motors’ revival of the iconic Sierra has sparked a very specific question across marketing and auto circles – is its launch film merely inspired by global SUV advertising, or has it copied Ford’s 2020 Bronco relaunch video a little too closely for comfort?
The debate is playing out in public because the brand has put out a high-visibility, horse-led teaser that many viewers say gives them instant Bronco déjà vu.
For readers to judge for themselves, here is Tata Motors’ Sierra launch teaser:
And here is Ford’s Bronco relaunch film from 2020:
The new Sierra, introduced at an aggressive introductory ex-showroom price of Rs 11.49 lakh, made a high-profile return on November 25. Bookings open on December 16, and deliveries are scheduled to begin January 15, 2026.
But almost as soon as the film went live, the launch narrative began to be overshadowed by social chatter accusing the campaign of borrowing too heavily from the Bronco’s visual grammar.
The Sierra teaser, released earlier this month, opens with sweeping shots of wild horses galloping through rugged terrain before transitioning to the SUV navigating hills and forests.
Ford’s celebrated Bronco comeback video, made to mark the nameplate’s return after 24 years, also uses mustangs and open landscapes to underscore themes of heritage and “untamed freedom”.
Viewers and practitioners quickly lined them up, not just at the level of idea but also in terms of execution. Side-by-side comparisons posted by auto enthusiasts, creators and marketing professionals highlight parallels in pacing, the use of slow-motion horse sequences, the alternation between herds and vehicle shots, and the overall wilderness aesthetic.
Many of these comparisons have since gone viral, with creators turning the moment into content across YouTube, Instagram and X instead of letting it remain an inside-baseball agency conversation.
A LinkedIn post by marketing professional Anupam Desai was among the first to explicitly use the word “copycat” for the Sierra film, calling it out as a lookalike of the Bronco relaunch spot and attaching a frame-by-frame comparison that drew wide engagement:
On Reddit’s r/CarsIndia community, users debated whether the similarities were coincidental, part of a broader off-roader trope, or a direct lift. One commenter described the opening sequence as “a bold-faced copy of the Porsche ad”, but the broader consensus in the thread leaned toward the Bronco resemblance and questioned why the creative choice had passed muster at both agency and client levels:
Tata Motors Marketing team cooked it gain with sierra
byu/Ok-Satisfaction2385 inCarsIndia
Instagram reels, YouTube shorts and X edits have amplified the discourse. Creators have produced stitched videos overlaying the Bronco soundtrack onto the Sierra visuals and vice versa, inviting followers to decide whether the film lands in the “inspired” or “copied” bucket.
Examples include shorts such as this one:
And multiple reels that cut between the two films, often with tongue-in-cheek captions:
On Facebook, popular meme pages have weighed in with lines like “Did Tata just drop the Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V on Ford’s homework?”, further cementing the controversy in popular feed culture.
The question running through most of these posts is the same: where is the line between homage and replication, and has this campaign crossed it?
Tata Motors has not issued an official response to the allegations. In the absence of a formal view, opinion has split along familiar lines.
Some users and analysts argue that the Sierra film sits within a long global tradition of SUV advertising that uses horses, open skies and rugged terrains as shorthand for freedom and capability.
They see the film as part of that genre rather than a direct copy. Others, including several practitioners, say the resemblance to the Bronco film is too specific and structural to be brushed off as generic “category codes”, and that the industry should be able to demand more original storytelling from a brand of Tata’s scale.
At least one commentary piece has tried to stake out a middle ground by describing the Sierra spot as “inspired by global SUV advertising styles, including the Ford Bronco, but not copied outright”, pointing out that references to landmark films are common on moodboards across markets.
But with creators now freezing frames and matching transitions, the inspired-versus-copied distinction is being litigated in public rather than in closed review meetings.
The controversy has, in turn, become raw material for the creator economy. Auto influencers, meme pages and commentary accounts have produced explainers, reaction videos and satire pieces dissecting the two ads, often with a mix of genuine craft analysis and humour.
For many of them, the story is a ready-made content format: it has a nostalgic Indian nameplate, a globally iconic SUV, and a clear visual hook that can be edited, remixed and debated.
For the Indian auto and advertising industries, the Sierra episode underlines how fast the “inspired or copied?” question now surfaces in a creator-first environment.
In earlier eras, creative similarities might have gone largely unnoticed outside trade circles. Today, digital creators, meme communities and auto enthusiasts dissect brand communication in real time, often shaping consumer perception before the brand or agency responds.
Tata Motors, buoyed by recent successes with the Nexon, Punch and its EV portfolio, is unlikely to face long-term damage from this one controversy. But the episode is a reminder that in a landscape where users can surface global references within hours and turn them into viral content, the margin for comfortably sitting in the “inspired” zone, without being accused of having copied, is getting narrower by the campaign.