July 21 2010
TV3: Homage or Copycat?
posted by Ana Samways at 2:44 pm
TV3 is getting some flak from the gamer community over their ad for “Something Big On Monday Night”, which bears a striking resemblance to a PlayStation campaign airing in the US. The ad is almost identical the global brand ad, except it stars Dai Henwood instead of fake PlayStation boss character Kevin Butler.
“Apparently New Zealand is unaware that ads can be uploaded to the Internet and watched in other parts of the world that might not look kindly on such an homage,” says Tim Nudd, editor of Adfreak.com.
“It’s rare to see a carbon copy of a U.S. commercial or campaign created by smaller players overseas,” explains Nudd to gaming site Joystiq.com. “I think there’s a healthy fear of getting caught and sued by the big guys. More common is the reverse — a big U.S. marketer/agency ripping off unknown work from smaller players.”
Earlier this year TV3 News promo used the tagline “Over six billion stories and counting”, which was considered very similar to the long-running SBS tagline: “Six Billion Stories and counting”, according to a story in Campaign Brief.
TV3 no longer has a regular creative agency – they do it in-house and appoint various agencies for individual projects. TV3 has been contacted for comment.
Here is the TV3’s ad followed by the PlayStation, courtesy of Dan News. UPDATE: TV3 are now saying the ad has run its course and have pulled it. How convenient.
What do you think?
(Source: Local gamer site Buttonmasher.)
July 21st, 2010 at 4:58 pm
1 word: Busted!
July 21st, 2010 at 8:13 pm
I bet they pulled it before bosses at Playstation thought they’d have some fun.
July 21st, 2010 at 10:22 pm
Oooh…ouch. Someone’s going to get nailed for this.
July 22nd, 2010 at 9:56 am
The rip, the whole rip, and nothing but the rip.
July 22nd, 2010 at 10:08 am
Probably just a coincidence – yeah right
July 22nd, 2010 at 10:55 am
I see a Tui’s billboard coming… so busted man!
July 22nd, 2010 at 11:58 am
Its a good ad.
Does anyone know if it is illegal to copy an advert? are they protected by copyrights?
July 22nd, 2010 at 12:28 pm
It’s probably difficult to call it copyright infringement (normally applies to the actual expression, not the idea) but still, plagiarising the idea is just lazy and cheap and unprincipled… says a lot about their brand …
July 22nd, 2010 at 12:29 pm
Ha! As if using the irritating not even remotely funny Dai Henwood wasn’t quite lame enough, TV3 have to thieve a complete promo idea. What fucking winners – our TV is clearly in the hands of bastards.
July 22nd, 2010 at 2:23 pm
It’s quite astonishing really.
I made a split-screen version of the two together – it’s incredibly clear where the ‘inspiration’ came from…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdnWbhk-8bQ
July 22nd, 2010 at 4:16 pm
“TV3 no longer has a regular creative agency”
But it sounds like they’ve got an old fashioned uncreative agency.
July 22nd, 2010 at 11:07 pm
A lot of advertising companies are now global. Who did the two adverts? Could the same people have just sold the same idea twice to two different clients?
July 23rd, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Here’s what PS3 had to say http://blog.us.playstation.com/2010/07/22/kevin-butler-and-new-zealand/
(hat tip @ShadowFactoryNZ via Twitter)