BACK in the early ’90s, when Philippine advertising entered a new phase and ads that were called malinis—clean, produced with polish but not exactly compelling—were no longer potential award winners, ad agency people shelled out cash every payday.
They made payments to a “Mrs. Salta,” a businesswoman who peddled rare-to-find advertising creativity books.
Mrs. Salta became a fixture in the Philippine Madison Avenue firmament during that time. She made glossy, imported books affordable by offering “6-drops,” or installment, relative to one’s capacity to pay.
It was safe to say that most people who worked in an advertising agency knew Mrs. Salta. The security guards, receptionists, accounting people, people in the creative department, including secretaries and, yes, even the suits and industry chi-chi crowd, knew of her.
She was completely the antithesis of the ambulant tocino suki (regular customer of preserved sweet pork) who visited Makati offices often. She dressed to the nines and did it with style. She had a bodyguard who always carried bags of them, and she had a shimmering white van parked somewhere near her place of business.
Best-seller mobile
CREATIVE department secretaries would suddenly seek Mrs. Salta upon the request of concept teams who were experiencing a drought of ideas. For those who had plenty of cash to spare and wanted tomes of them, she would gladly escort them to her splendid vehicle, to let them see her other stuff not available in any bookstore in the Philippines.
Mrs. Salta became a buzzword so much so that she was made into a character, a parody account in an advertising rant site “Café Creatives.” Though people forgot her given name and remembered only her family name, she became more popular than the advertising association’s president.
Her best sellers included The Art Directors Annual, which was very thick, one could knock an unusually big rat out using it. There’s also The One Show, a copywriter’s dream; Epica, for those who wanted to poke their noses on what’s hot in Europe; and, the Communication Arts series—they bombed but made most art directors drool.
As soon as the security guard at the lobby hollered, “Mrs. Salta is in the building premises, show up or hide now!,” people reached for their pagers, the communications gadgets before the cell phone entered the market.
God’s gift
MRS. Salta’s goods sold more than hotcakes.
Whether a few months delayed, or hot off the press, they brought some kind of approval from industry colleagues. They made the guy next to your cubicle envy, a magnet to many: the cantankerous, introverts and other characters inhabiting the creative department. A product of Mrs. Salta on your table erased people’s initial impression of you: that you were not a run-of-the-mill hire and you had taste in your bones itching to surface.
Some say Mrs. Salta was advertising God’s gift to advertising.
“When all you see were tiring product freights and boring manufacturer’s copy lines, ‘Mrs. Salta’ was an oasis in the middle of a creative desert. You call her and she brings in books, pronto,” a former copywriter, now a top creative director, said. “Her wares inspired many. Sadly, some creative people ended up copying stuff from the books she sold.”
When the Internet got a little faster and www.adsoftheworld.com and its derivative sites entered the scene, Mrs. Salta’s books faded into the night. They became remnants of the past and gathered dust, along with the old trophies of the Ad Congress. She, too, gently exited out of the picture.
Giants’ shoulders
SOME of us have been in advertising long enough to see the many transformations in the industry. Though the digital divide may have rendered some of us into dinosaurs, many have crossed over and felt like a digital native.
In a volatile industry where innovation and change continue to alter our landscape, one thing remained constant. Agency old timers, and even the millennial generation, were taught to value creativity and honor—expressing disdain from copying one’s work, confusing the public and misleading consumers.
Some would invoke the adage “Great minds think alike,” and believe in the spin that people have put into an idea as “innovation.” In David Kord Murray’s book Borrowing Brilliance, the author revealed: “Brilliance is borrowed and that in order to create, first, you have to copy.”
Many famous men were accused of ripping other people’s work—Newton, Shakespeare, Helen Keller, J.K. Rowling, T.S. Eliot, Jane Goodall, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, the guys from Google. Their ideas were alleged to have been constructed from borrowed ideas. Even Newton admitted guilt, saying to “see farther,” he stood “on the shoulders of giants and built on the ideas of others.”
Valuable asset
CREATIVITY for brands is a valuable asset. Though philosophers have time and again argued that “ideas give birth to other ideas,” one is tempted to ask: “Does that give license to one to copy someone else’s work?”
The term Renaissance during the 14th century means creative explosion. Artists during the earlier part of this wonderful period were obligated to improve the original, to give a rebirth of some sort to the stale status quo. Innovation and collaborative efforts in which one idea was copied and given with enhancements were the rule of the day. Copying was understood and expected.
But soon after, the free-market economy began to develop and artists began to break away from their patrons and sell their artwork independently. Michelangelo and Da Vinci, among them, signed their masterpieces against copycats and frauds. Copying and plagiarism were now condemned.
Furthermore, Murray explained, “We are forced to conceal or disguise the source of our ideas for fear of social or legal retribution. No one wants to admit for fear of being labeled as a plagiarist or idea thief.”
Today, whether one is an advertising industry veteran or greenhorn, one can see a virtual rip-off, tweaked or derived from another idea within the universe that he or she moves.
One gets queasy and, much more, dismayed at the sight of an ad with an uncanny similarity to the one that you once encountered. In an industry that honors creativity and originality, we are often silent about the latter.
Déjà vu
RECENTLY, we had a spate of déjà vu.
Take a Vodafone TV commercial in 2014 for one.
Touching and emotional, this one from Jung von Matt advertising agency in Germany manages to be moving without being mushy.
A young girl crosses items off her grandfather’s bucket list and, through the magic of her Vodafone, takes them to a bird’s-eye view of her jumping in a swimming pool diving platform, eating creepy bugs and testing her land-speed record.
The granddaughter lets grandpa know she’s been enjoying every second of her trip. The bucket list “crossing out” scene is the highlight of the ad as it is repeated at least four times as the commercial progresses.
In a recent local television commercial, a sense of déjà vu creeps in. Except for the change of characters, the story is virtually the same.
The granddaughter now becomes a young man. The elderly man becomes an elderly woman. The opening shot is basically the same (guy in the mountain). The “crossing out” scene is there all over.
Another is the corporate brand identity of a UK company (2014), which has a triangular shape and the color elements of the logo are in bright primary and secondary colors.
Two years later, we see a corporate brand identity of a high-profile local company an almost exact replica of the UK firm’s logo.
Likewise, a fast-food TV commercial in 2007 is echoed in a fastfood TV commercial a decade later.
Theft, coincidence
WHERE’S the line between theft and coincidence in similar creative ideas?
Recently, some ad veterans were noticing—and lamenting—the similarities between Nike’s 1995 “If You Let Me Play” ad and Kaiser Permanente’s (KP) “My Future” ad that ran during the recent summer Olympics.
Yes, the two commercials have much in common. And the Kaiser ad is many degrees inferior to the Nike spot.
For those of you who weren’t in this business 20 years ago, it’s hard to overstate how admired, lauded and inspirational the Nike “If You Let Me Play” ad was, not just for its intended audience but to the ad industry as a whole. It’s one of the ads that made me want to get into the business and attempt to do that caliber of work.
So for advertising people of a certain generation, alarm bells went off when watching the Kaiser spot. Was the latter a blatant rip-off, a heartfelt homage or a mere coincidence?
This writer doesn’t claim to know how this happened; he’s been in advertising long enough to know that ad ideas often share attributes with work that’s been previously done.
The writer is likewise not interested in assigning blame here. He’s much more interested in the nuances of the decision-making process involved because it’s a window into the current state of creativity in advertising and marketing.
Not easy
DID somebody know about the similarities in the KP spot before it got filmed? By “somebody” means anyone including the creative team, creative directors, account executives, agency management, producers, directors and all those associated in the layers of client marketers.
There are only three basic scenarios to explain what happened:
First, somebody knew there was a similarity and didn’t speak up.
The KP piece was a TV spot running during the Olympics. There’s a lot at stake for all involved. “Let’s hope no one really notices” is a quiet thought in the minds of many ad professionals when they’re pursuing an idea that could backfire.
Someone could’ve also noticed similarities a little further down the timeline—after concepts were approved, budgets were determined, and the production hairball began rolling down the mountain.
Is it better to remain silent than be the voice that derails a major project? You try putting on the brakes with millions of dollars involved: It’s not easy.
Post-It note
A SECOND scenario could be that somebody knew there was a similarity and did, in vain, speak up.
“You know, that idea kind of reminds me of….” I’ve heard that a bunch and have said so sometimes, too. That kind of reservation can fall on deaf ears.
Perhaps a less forceful team member who voiced objections was slapped down and told to shut up. We cannot underestimate the collective power of a bunch of people in a conference room to justify bad decisions or pretend the elephant in the room doesn’t really exist.
And don’t underestimate the power of a C-level client executive who says, “You know, I’d love to do a spot like this one,” as he or she sends YouTube links out to underlings and the agency. For client-side marketers, their careers go merrily on even when encouraging or approving derivative advertising.
Faced with a similar situation, many people in our business would state out loud that they don’t care if a proposed ad resembled an older one.
Think of how easily it could be justified: a change in target audience or product category could be enough differentiation in their eyes. It’s no wonder the advertising industry’s code of ethics would fit on a Post-It note.
A third scenario could be nobody knew there was a similarity between the Nike and the KP ads.
Were the entire team of agency and client folks working on the KP ad simply unaware of the Nike spot? It might sound far-fetched but, yes, it’s possible.
Chuck Berry
THIS writer has taught aspiring copywriters who knew next to nothing about the ad industry and its history. Hell, they didn’t even watch Mad Men.
Don’t assume that junior creatives have ever perused the dusty copies of the Communications Arts and One Show annuals Mrs. Salta sold and line the bookshelves in the remote corners of agencies.
Plus, our digital world has left old-school advertising uncatalogued.
While YouTube is a good repository of many old commercials, there’s no organization to it. Good luck trying to find high-resolution images of old print ads the ad world used to celebrate.
Many people currently working in advertising and marketing simply don’t bother to learn about anything that was produced even a few years ago. If they do learn, the old work is deemed not sacrosanct that it couldn’t be copied in some regard.
And there are, of course, degrees of rip-off: a copy line, unique visual, commercial plot, app idea, style, film technique or strategy. Some people merely look at ads from today and no matter how small the detail, it reminds them of some ad long forgotten by much of the world.
This doesn’t just happen in advertising. All art forms have this type of conflict.
Just ask Chuck Berry.
No penalties
WE’RE in an era in which many new marketing firms have popped up—content marketing firms, consultancies, digital and social-media companies, etc.—whose leaders regularly disdain the very idea of “advertising” and declare that it’s dead. For them, even a vaunted Nike ad isn’t a sacred cow.
So what happens now with this particular Kaiser Permanente spot? A whole lot of nothing, that’s what.
Other than the kangaroo court of advertising insiders as jurors, there is no real punishment for ripping off someone else’s advertising unless there’s a legitimate copyright issue. And these are rare.
Unfortunately, there will never be a consensus as to what a rip-off is or what’s fair game for appropriation. Crying foul will only generate crocodile tears. So we’ll continue to see new work that feels familiar or derivative. Even if it means producing a commercial that recalls a great Nike spot.
Because some people just get away with it when they just do it.
Image credits: Ekaterina Muzyka/dreamstime.com, Valeriy Kachaev/dreamstime.com, Alexandr Sidorov/dreamstime.com