When I started my career in advertising I was told that the best way to make good ads is to watch them. And so I immersed myself in whatever “inspiration” I could find. And when I started my agency, I told all my young fresh copywriters and creatives to do the same. I believe all over the world, creatives look for inspiration in the same manner. Yes, we tell our clients that we dig deep in consumers' hearts, which we do; we look where other agencies don’t, which sometimes we do; but at 2am with a pitch at 9am in the morning and no light-bulbs flashing, we often resort to frantic Google searches.
And this is where the thin line between plagiarism and inspiration gets blurred. In my fourteen years in advertising, I have never heard any adman say "I was inspired by this ad…" I have heard of inspiration that comes from all the right places: music, a conversation with a lady on the street, an encounter with the unexpected, an art piece… but never another ad. The reality is we watch ads like we smoke cigarettes - one finishes and we are searching the next, never satisfied, always wanting more, always wanting the next one to count more.
And when you live in a creatively obscure place like Pakistan, where so many feel that the next person has not spent enough time Googling, and where short cuts are a way of life, unfortunately so is plagiarism.
Here are some examples of campaigns that have run in Pakistan - plagiarism or inspiration? What do you think?
And this is where the thin line between plagiarism and inspiration gets blurred. In my fourteen years in advertising, I have never heard any adman say "I was inspired by this ad…" I have heard of inspiration that comes from all the right places: music, a conversation with a lady on the street, an encounter with the unexpected, an art piece… but never another ad. The reality is we watch ads like we smoke cigarettes - one finishes and we are searching the next, never satisfied, always wanting more, always wanting the next one to count more.
And when you live in a creatively obscure place like Pakistan, where so many feel that the next person has not spent enough time Googling, and where short cuts are a way of life, unfortunately so is plagiarism.
Here are some examples of campaigns that have run in Pakistan - plagiarism or inspiration? What do you think?
Left-hand picture from a Pakistan telecoms provider; the one on the right comes from Apple's iconic iPod campaign.
Logo on the top is from a website that helps provide inspiration and instructions on designing logos; one on the bottom is the latest logo for a new campaign by another Pakistani telecoms company.
You can see more pictures by visiting the album on a Facebook group I run:
Look for titles with the words 'Chor Police' (chor = thief in Urdu).
By Sabine Saigol
Source: Brand Republic
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