How much advertising is already crowdsourced?
I was watching TV last night when the Berocca ad came onto the box.
It’s an ‘homage’ to the ‘Ok Go’ YouTube video (below) and involves some boring-looking generic ’suits’ going all oddball on some gym equipment that’s (inexplicably) been left in the street in response to someone nearby preparing a super-dose of the orange fizzy stuff. It’s a pale imitation of the original and caused me to reflect on how much ad creative is already effectively sourced (in terms of inspiration) from community and media sharing sites. Some traditional ad creatives you meet (by no means all of them) can be a little snooty about the wisdom of the crowds. However, just like the journalists who you sometimes hear slagging off social news and blogging sites only to find they routinely start a new assignment with a visit to Wikipedia, it seems that many are taking inspiration from folk-media.
As we all know, a far more exciting use of Berocca is to create sparkly explosives like this:
Leandra 8 Apr 2008 8:53 am
this is so bad, i saw the ad last night and it made me cringe!
i mean they didnt even come up with their own moves. its such a bad copy - i wouldn’t even use the word “homage”.
not cool.
tim 8 Apr 2008 8:53 am
Err, yeah - I was trying to polite with the word “homage”. What I should have said is “stomach-churningly awful rip-off”.
James Cox 8 Apr 2008 8:53 am
It’s such a shame they just ripped OK Go’s rather inventive home-made choreography, rather than taking the next level.
Could have been really exciting - if they had either made it clear they were emulating OK Go in parody, or rather improve on the concept and take it one step further…
certainly seems some in adland are just taking the easy route out!
tim 8 Apr 2008 8:53 am
True enough. I for one will stick with non-fizzy vitamins from now on in a boycott.
Duncan 8 Apr 2008 8:53 am
Advertising creatives are normally hired based on how good they look, or how stupid the execs are. In the creative industries the best person for the job rarely gets it. Anyone know which company made the ad, so they can be properly flamed and abused?