FEATURES: It's a coincidence, Jim, but not as we know it - If one ad looks just like another ad, was it necessarily ripped off?

<p>Right after the New Year holidays, letters began appearing in </p><p>Manila newspapers (and MEDIA) complaining bitterly about 'copycats' in </p><p>the country's advertising industry. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>It went on to refer to a couple of our ads as having been lifted from </p><p>work that, frankly, we hadn't seen and still haven't been able to </p><p>find. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>But giving him or her the benefit of the doubt, does the writer of the </p><p>letter have a point? </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>If an ad looks like another ad has one team necessarily ripped off </p><p>another? </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>In a fit of righteous indignation, I decided to take a look at some </p><p>local and international examples to see if it was everyone - or just </p><p>me. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Well, the good news for me was that after a short time doing this, it </p><p>became obvious that just about any ad could, if you tried hard enough, </p><p>be tracked down to something else. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>As a copywriter from George Paterson Bates (who of course was </p><p>complaining bitterly about being accused of ripping something off) wrote </p><p>in a 'Dear Sir' letter: </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>"Is a different use of a product demonstration a rip-off from the first </p><p>people that did product demonstrations? Is a visual pun a rip-off from </p><p>the person that did the first visual pun? We see the same creative </p><p>layouts every day, but judge them on their content, not the fact they </p><p>have used the same layout." </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Well, quite, as Neil French might say. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>And interestingly D&AD juries are not above awarding exactly the same </p><p>idea, from different agencies in the same awards show. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Consider these examples: South China Morning Post by J. Walter Thompson </p><p>Hong Kong and Hongkong Bank by Ball Singapore. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Or another one on TV - Head & Shoulders by Saatchi & Saatchi London and </p><p>another dandruff shampoo by PPGH/JWT, which both used snow-globes to </p><p>demonstrate the perils of dandruff. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>More recently, the One Show awarded two basically identical posters gold </p><p>in the same show (VW Polo by BMP DDB London and Volvo by Saatchi & </p><p>Saatchi Madrid). </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>It's probably fair to say that the juries in these shows saw both ads </p><p>and felt each was honestly arrived at. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>That was certainly the case at the Singapore Creative Circle. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>In this ad, Saatchis Singapore used the idea of over-protective parents </p><p>who had apparently taken extreme steps to guarantee the safety of their </p><p>kids. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>As a group, we felt it deserved to be best of show. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>But was it a rip-off from this famous Volvo poster by Abbott Mead </p><p>Vickers/BBDO? </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>I was worried enough to email fellow juror John Messum (now Saatchis </p><p>London head of art). </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>The upshot: yes, there are some similarities. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>But it's a good ad by any standards and deserved to win. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>So if people aren't ripping each other off, just what, exactly, is going </p><p>on? </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>The answer could be that with tens of thousands of creative teams </p><p>toiling away daily at the same problems we are all basically coming up </p><p>with the same ideas. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>As The Glue Society's Jonathan Kneebone (one of the creators of the </p><p>'Feels like Sunday' campaign) put it, "The best ad for me is not one </p><p>that fits this weird middle ground territory that everyone around the </p><p>world now considers to be 'good ad' territory. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>"Look at Archive and you'll notice that it looks like all the work was </p><p>done by the same team - it all has the same personality. And it's </p><p>boring." </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Of course, 'boring' isn't much better than being called a 'rip-off'. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>But that's probably the greatest risk in not making your message </p><p>brutally and unmistakably specific to the task at hand. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>This can be a lot harder than it sounds. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>If you are working on a fireworks safety campaign it sounds pretty </p><p>specific to use a hand mutilated by gunpowder. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Ace/Saatchi Manila did exactly that and were rewarded with an Ad of the </p><p>Year. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>As a bizarre coincidence, the same execution showed up in the same year </p><p>in this commercial from TBWA Holland. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Same goes for this Lysol ad from McCanns Manila, which cleverly uses a </p><p>funeral notice to announce the demise of some germs. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Clearly, they had never seen the same device used a few years ago in </p><p>this Shieldtox ad from O&M Malaysia. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>This TV commercial for Shell Velocity from JWT Manila looks identical to </p><p>an Audi A4 ad from BBH London. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>In fact, it's so close you have to say they couldn't have seen the </p><p>original - they would at least have changed the car! </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Eyebrows might be raised at the Holiday Inn ad from Campaigns & Grey </p><p>Manila, which is incredibly similar to this famous Leagas Delaney </p><p>example. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>And, those eyebrows going yet higher for this, er, tribute by Basic </p><p>Advertising Manila to the long-running 'milk moustaches' campaign by </p><p>Bozell in the US. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>But then again, somebody thought of it before. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Why couldn't someone else sit down and think of it again? </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>As always, the only test is whether a jury of an awards show </p><p>collectively decides to weigh all the factors at hand and decide whether </p><p>a new execution adds anything new to the old, however famous. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Eric Silver at Cliff Freeman and partners is quoted as saying: </p><p>"Ninety-nine per cent of the time, advertising is necessarily derivative </p><p>and only one per cent is truly original. So many ideas have been done </p><p>before that most of the time you can't help being unoriginal." </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>What's the answer then, assuming you do want to reach that magic one per </p><p>cent? </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>The answer seems to lie in making your ads so unique to the brand - and </p><p>to the communica-tions problem you're trying to solve - that the chances </p><p>of it having been done before are diminished. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>The only safe assumption is that everything has been done before. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>So perhaps our letter writer was right after all. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>We are all copycats, most of the time, and the harder you work the more </p><p>you realise it. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>All you can hope for is that as the outrageously original (outpost.com, </p><p>Fox sports) Silver puts it, that "you steal stuff and make it your </p><p>own". </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Now there's an idea we can all agree on. </p><p><BR><BR> </p>