First Bacardi ripped-off The Cacophony Society’s Breakers to Bay Salmon Run, then Absolut Vodka co-opted the Pillow Fight and now the latest underground event used as the theme of a television commercial is Santacon (Santarchy) with Motorola’s new “Santa Swarm” ad for their bluetooth headsets.
The ad was produced for Motorola by creative agency DraftFCB working with the production company Harold Group. It was directed by Jamin Winans who made the really cool short film “Spin” that I posted about last year.
Thanks to Spacemonkey for the tip!
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
And note the bunny hopping out at the end? And the print ads Toyota ran ripping off Bring Your Own Big Wheel AND Soapbox Derby Races?
Standing by for Critical Mass, Improv Everywhere, Burning Man et al to be served up next. Proof, were any needed, that ad hacks are lazy vultures.
Don’t forget the McDonald’s Urban Golf commercial and CSI:NY take on the NY version of Urban Iditarod.
Did they ask? Time for Rob to sue for royalties. ;-)
Rick, both of those things you reference are on the Pillow Fight post. This happens so often that I’m not really going to duplicate the list each time a new one comes up. Maybe you should start a master list of them somewhere that we can link to.
Gee Kevin, maybe David Belle should sue for the use of Parkour in the ad also.
David Belle creator of Parkour? Interesting note…If I remember right was not the first
Cacophony event a Parkour type course? As far as I know the director of this ad did not ask, but was blogged about here a year and a half ago. Hmmm……..
What a mindless stupid ad! As if the other ear goes deaf.
Mining the Zeitgeist or plagiarism? Tough call. These ad agencies appear to be performing the function that Malcolm Gladwell, in “The Tipping Point,” refers to as “transforming”: taking the stuff that’s too cool or edgy for the mainstream and blunting the sharp edges a little bit to make it acceptable to the masses. It’s not like Cacophony or Santarchists or the like are going to buy Blue-Tooths or Bacardi or whatever based on its advertising, anyway. They’re on the leading edge; they’re not who advertisers could ever hope to target.
I’m not convinced that anything that references a crowd of people dressed as Santa is automatically ripping off Santacon. Last I checked, Santacon doesn’t involve percussion instruments, dancers and acrobatics, and the santas in the commercial aren’t drinking or going into a bar.
It’s not like Caco’s ideas are so blindingly original that nobody else could arrive at a similar concept independently.
Except Artists For Earthquakes. That one was a true original. ;-)
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