Bacardi Rips-Off The Cacophony Society With Salmon “Swimming Upstream” Commercial
Wow this is amazing, alcoholic beverage maker Bacardi totally ripped-off San Francisco’s infamous underground prankster group The Cacophony Society with their upcoming “Bacardi Salmon” (”Swimming Upstream”) television commerial and massive, global “You In?” ad campaign.
Since 1994, The Cacophony Society has had their salmon running in the opposite direction during the annual Bay to Breakers 12K race through San Francisco. The salmon would enter at the mid point of the course and then spawn their way upstream. The salmon are mini-celebrities at the race and always get a huge cheer as they go by. This well known, 12 year old Cacophony event is called Breakers to Bay, and more salmon info can be found on Tribe.net, as well as photos on Flickr and video on YouTube.
So I was pretty surprised when I was sent a link to the “Bacardi Salmon” commerical. It was developed for Bacardi by the ad agency RKCR/Y&R (Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe, the UK office of Young & Rubicam) , who used the production company Hungry Man, with Jim Jenkins as the director of the spot. The ad steals the entire concept of The Cacophony Society’s Breakers to Bay event, featuring salmon spawning upstream during a foot race through New York (instead of San Francisco). They make no attempt to give any credit to the event’s origins or the person who came up with the idea for the event.
Well I guess if you can’t come up with something orginal, you can just follow Bacardi’s lead by co-opting someone else’s idea and “run upstream” with it. Oh yeah, be sure to drink a bunch of rum first.
Here’s some of the coverage on this story so far:
San Francisco Chronicle (Leah Garchik)
News.com Media Blog (Daniel Terdiman)
Boing Boing (Xeni Jardin)
Metroblogging San Francisco (Violet Blue)
Adfreak (David Kiefaber)
The Future Place Blog (Ray Poynter)
gapingvoid (Hugh MacLeod)
HorsePigCow (Tara Hunt)
UPDATE 1: Here’s an entry on the vfxtalk.com forums discussing the CG effects used by The Mill to create the ad. Well our salmons don’t need no stinkin’ CG.
UPDATE 2: Here’s a production news article from the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting. My favorite quote from the article is “The agency wanted the Marathon and they wanted the Verrazano bridge. This couldn’t have shot anywhere else”. Um yeah, I guess unless you count the 12 years that it was shot in San Francisco. Man, does anyone ever fact check?
UPDATE 3: It turns out that this was not the first time a major corporation has stolen the idea of the Cacophony salmon run. Back in 2000 Nike created a billboard that “borrowed” the salmon theme.
UPDATE 4: So this is not just some avarage ad run, Bacardi is planning on spending £70m on global advertising campaign using this commerical along with posters with the “Swimming upstream” theme. RKCR/Y&R piched Bacardi on this idea for 6 months, an idea that they didn’t even come up with. Absoultely ridiculous.
UPDATE 5: New York actor Jason relates a story on MySpace of when he auditioned for the “Bacardi Salmon” commercial back in April. It’s a nice glimpse into the vapid world of television commercial production.
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on Monday, August 14th, 2006 at 6:15 am
Thanks for posting this.
I have a love hate relationship with advertising. And i really hate when uninspired companies steal street / underground culture to hock some commercial BS. There is an interesting book called ‘guerilla marketing’ that showcases a lot of off beat advertising strategies, sometimes its Kudos for being brave and doing something interesting, othertime you have to wonder at the blatant rip offs.
Yet we are quite helpless to do much about it. :S
p/
on Monday, August 14th, 2006 at 10:22 am
Wow…that is distrubingly close. It is unfortunate that no attribution was given…
on Monday, August 14th, 2006 at 10:53 am
Is it at all possible that two people came up with the same idea independently? Given that we’re all exposed to most of the same media reporting the same event, it’s a wonder it doesn’t happen more often.
Are we sure that the idea was entirely original when The Cacophony Society did it? Had no one ever dressed up as Salmon and ran int he face of something else?
I demand an investigation so that The Cacophony Society can begin giving credit where credit is due!
on Monday, August 14th, 2006 at 11:17 am
First of all, the idea of New Yorkers even getting the joke is retarded, since no salmon actually spawn up the Hudson.
What I think would be an appropriate response from the Cacophonists would maybe involve taking a camera to the Tenderloin and filming the human fallout from alcoholism (or, alternately, doing a ‘real people’ spot with testimonials from people in recovery), and set it to the soundtrack used in the commercial. It could totally go viral!
on Monday, August 14th, 2006 at 11:41 am
let’s not forget the time that Mc Donalds decided to rip off the idea for urban golf and put it in a commercial.
Madison must br hurtin’ for fresh ideas.
http://urbangolf.org/what.html
on Monday, August 14th, 2006 at 12:12 pm
Great! More people to kill on my murderous rampage!!!!!!
on Monday, August 14th, 2006 at 3:43 pm
It wouldn’t smart so much if AD EXCECS weren’t so boring, souless and arrogant. I know, I’ve met several. Man, they were boring jerks.
It wouldn’t be so bad if there was some trickle down of the VAST sums of money that changed hands in the making of the ad to the people who actually came up with and participated in the idea - most of whom could really use some residual checks in their mailboxes about now.
Participate in a grand American tradition: SUE THE PANTS OFF THEM.
on Monday, August 14th, 2006 at 7:17 pm
Wow. That’s pretty suck-ass, and entirely un-surprising at the same time.
Maybe you can find the twit who ‘came up with the idea’ at the agency and convince him/her to let the Cacophony Society Members drive his/her Porsche on alternate weekends!
on Monday, August 14th, 2006 at 8:12 pm
I understand you may be personally offended in this case, but it’s no secret that ad agencies steal everyone else’s ideas all the time. You can’t copyright an idea.
on Monday, August 14th, 2006 at 8:29 pm
This is nothing new, ideas are stolen daily. The thing that really gets me, are the ideas that are only half baked and sold to the Companies for BIG BUCKS, only to be passed off to the people that really make it happen…I COULD tell you how many times I ‘ve polished a turd into an award winning advert… but it would make me sad. I want driving privileges for that Porsche!
on Tuesday, August 15th, 2006 at 7:16 am
I find it weird that at work, in part, I get paid to plagurize. Plagiarism is a common and intelligent solution for TV marketing. For example, if one makes a TV spot, it is common to select music which would be identified with the target market, and then create a sound-alike. The object is to reference existing music which has the meaning you want, and appropriate the cultural reference for your own product. Musicians and producers copy as much of the qualities of a song as possible, without actually infringing upon the copyright and incurring big licensing fees.
However, at home, in the world of art and personal expression, using 25 tiny samples from the distant past to make something genuinely new is likely to draw legal action.
The commercial approach is legal plagiarism, and the artistic approach is illegal creativity. As a culture, we value plagiarism more highly than creativity, and commodifiable expression more highly than ideas. An idea that can’t be commodified is an idea without value.
(It’s a shame about hip hop, which has been reduced to rap: artists can’t use 25 samples per song anymore, as they can only afford 1 sample; some ironically rely on creating their own sound-alikes. And if a sound-alike song becomes a hit, the makers of TV commercials make their own sound-alike of the original. The world of recombinant art which has grown out of digital media technology has been reduced to plagiaristic simulation. )
on Tuesday, August 15th, 2006 at 8:27 am
Umm, I haven’t seen any video of the Cacophony Society’s run so I can’t comment about similarities in the visual styles. However, asserting that the society must have invented the idea of running upstream a la salmon is silly. I had never heard of the Cacophony Society until today (despite the fact I have lived in the Bay Area for nearly ten years) yet in the 90’s I used to do group training runs “backwards” around our loop, telling everyone that I was a salmon. My point is that it is quite possible to independently invent ideas. Once arrived at, the idea of running upstream would naturally evolve into salmon costumes. And, as the Hash House Harriers (motto: a drinking club with a running problem) would be sure to tell you, the Cacophony society must have invented the idea of going out for a drink after a run — not. Also, if the agency wanted the [New York City] Marathon and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, then it really couldn’t have been shot anywhere else, could it? The SF Marathon and the GG Bridge are beautiful (I commute over the latter daily) but they aren’t the same thing, are they?
on Tuesday, August 15th, 2006 at 8:42 am
What was that line? “Everything you love will be repackaged & sold to people you hate”
on Tuesday, August 15th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
Oh this story reeks of so many things I hate: New York provincialism “this could only be shot here”, advertising people trying to do something that someone else has done with more hilarity and panache, and artists stealing other art. Ugh! Go Cacaphony. I’m so proud I live here! They are hilarious during the race- and to the person who has never heard of them before, you’ve been missing out!
on Tuesday, August 15th, 2006 at 11:25 pm
Aaar! Guess I’m back to drinking Ron Rico :)
on Wednesday, August 16th, 2006 at 7:45 am
I know that it’s not like we had copyright on the idea, but having actually *been* a Cacophony Salmon one year… this kinda bugs me, while at the same time it makes me proud. On the one hand, it’s like - hey, look, I did that one year! - and on the other, it’s like - those assholes! *I* did that one year! I guess what it really means is that it’s time to move even further to the edge, since what used to be the edge has clearly moved center….
on Wednesday, August 16th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
Greetings,
The Cacophany Society is famous for it’s social work and should be applauded.
My roommate, Rob, definitively started this urban joke-myth by running the Bay to Breakers event as a spawning fish as an adjunct to the budding Burning Man gyrations. Let there be no doubt he took the idea from mere twinkle in his eye to honorable mention on national tv coverage. Rob’s a great one for mental puns going back to the late eighties & early nineties and his support of the Billboard Liberation Front. Viva!
Rob wrote me this week asking, rhetorically, if he should have copyrighted the event.
Well, here’s your fifteen nano’s of fame, roomie!
- Jonathan -
on Wednesday, August 16th, 2006 at 5:48 pm
In a similar vein, (name redacted, but it’s a big software company) had a print campaign a couple of years ago with a “devil girl” theme. They used a illo cobbled together from three different images of mine, and even set the ad copy using the display fonts I created for House Industries. When my lawyer contacted them, they of course claimed ignorance of my work, and said it was just a coincidence, then tried to blame the poor illustrator who got the assignment. My lawyer found the artist who did the illo, and got him to confirm that his first pass (which looked nothing like my stuff) was rejected, and he was sent to my website for “inspiration.”
Bottom line, they are all skunks, and they will steal anything that ain’t nailed down, as my grandpappy would say.
on Wednesday, August 16th, 2006 at 7:25 pm
^OMG coop! I must say i have seen many rip offs of coop’s work. Mostly by bands (who have no money), perhaps its a homage, but its not gonna put food on the table. :S
On a similar note, the HP campaign for ‘making the computer personal again’ bare similarities two the famous ipod commercials. Bright colours with human silhouttes. http://www.hp.com/personalagain/us/en/index.html
p.
on Wednesday, August 16th, 2006 at 8:32 pm
I really don’t see the problem with this. I mean I love cacophony, I love the salmon (that’s my video on youtube you linked to) and most of all I love you, Scott, but ideas flow. As someone once told me, IP is the easter bunny; you want to believe it exists, but it doesn’t. This is why I also love the Creative Commons. Sure the Salmon Run concept will be percolating through the sotted brains of thousands of frat boys now and will spawn [cough] many horrendous mutant children, but Caco and the Breakers to Bay will survive.
I mean, hell, would you really -want- Bacardi to run an ad that actually featured the Cacophony Society in some way?
on Monday, August 21st, 2006 at 6:43 am
Good Point Dav, I’m sure if the Cacophony Society were involved we would be screaming sell-out! If anything perhaps it will push them onto the next big thing, create something even more original.
on Tuesday, November 21st, 2006 at 12:11 pm
I just saw this ad run before a movie in a cinema in London and after it was over the person next to me looked at me and muttered… “oh Americans.” What this person didn’t know is that I am from San Francisco and have participated in just about every cacophony event I’ve been living in San Francisco for. They also didn’t know how much my feelings were just hurt by seeing such an awesome thing turned bad. The end when the girl is flirting with the salmon head is particularly bad.
I wonder when how much time until we see a Santa Archy Jack Daniels ad.
on Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006 at 7:38 am
Does anyone know which band provide the music to this ad?
on Monday, November 27th, 2006 at 7:51 pm
The band is D4, album is 6TWENTY