Inspiration or Copying?
June 8th, 2008
advertising 
matt
When are creative ideas inspired by others and when are they just straightforward copies? Its a fine line in my view, but still a very clear and present line.
I’m sure you have all seen the recent Berocca advert that takes its “inspiration” from Ok Go’s music video. Its plain to see where the idea came from for that ad and we can all shout “copycats!”, but the main reason for this glaring miscarriage of ideas is the implementation of the original idea. Let me cite another example, Honda’s Cogs and Peter Fischli & David Weiss’s ‘The way things go’. I have to thank my old creative director Flo for pointing this out. However from what I remember there wasn’t the same negative outcry about that ad, instead it was appluaded for its creativity.
So what is the difference between the two? Well I can think of two factors the most glaring here being that Ok Go’s video was probably seen by a much wider audience than Fischli & Weiss’s ‘The way things go’. Therefore of course creating a bigger swarm of defense when it was “copied”. But the more interesting point I think is the fact that Honda with the hlep of thier ad agency managaged to take one great creative idea and take it further to work with a product. However Berrocca’s attempt at the same failed misrably because it was the recyling of the same idea with no development towards the product. Simply directly recreating the same video again was a bit silly, they would of been better off paying for the OK Go Video and then just wacked their tag line on at the end..
Is there a difference between inspiration and copying? Yes, but telling the difference is hard for creatives and getting it wrong could be catastrophic.
Tags: advertising, berocca, fischli, honda, weiss
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