Plagiarism corner #5: VW Golf vs. Honda vs. Ford Focus vs. Sacla vs. Lasse Gjertsen megamix
Bit tenuous this one, and all the more difficult because it’s a) quite a good ad and b) for a car I actually quite enjoy driving (I hire rather than own, and have had a couple of Golfs. Golves?). Nevertheless, my pseudo-plagiarism spidey sense tingled on seeing VW’s latest:
Yes, it’s another ad taking as its starting point the idea that you can create a lovely musical soundtrack using only the natural sounds the featured product actually makes. Alright, the Golf ad takes the idea and for once actually evolves it a little. For another equally ‘evolved’ take on the basic formula, anyone remember this Honda ad from a little while ago:
This one bugged the hell out of me, and I’m usually quite a fan of Honda ads. For a real ‘treat’ why not also check out this epic 3 minute spot for the Ford Focus, lamentably using actual car parts. In my view this is at least a more creatively fulfilling use for a Ford Focus than actually driving one:
And to wrap up this almighty bout of plagiarism wars (which in fairness should really be called ‘ideas collaboration’ or something similar), see my earlier post for videos by Sacla and the original YouTube hit video by Lasse Gjertsen. I won’t go so far as to suggest Lasse came up with the fundamental concept, but you can’t pretend his vid hasn’t made it massive in the ad world ever since.
Honda vs. Lurpak – baritone wars
What better way to get things going than by examining one of the most basic, fundamental tools in the ad-person’s toolkit: the deep voice. Consider two examples: the lovely new Honda ads (watch here, if you like mildly amusing computer-crippling flash animations) telling you how green and wonderful their cars are (or will be), and those bleedin’ Lurpak ads (available here – if you like being patronised by Jack Nicholson).
I actually really like the Honda ad, for a number of reasons: it has bonkers speeded-up technoish music that makes you feel somehow cool in that ‘oh yes, isn’t that clever’ kind of way; it is, like it or not, quite a fun idea for an advert very much from the ‘they didn’t do that for real, did they?’ school that’s so popular at the moment (see Sony et al); but mostly because, at the end of the day, what it’s actually advertising might just be the start of a sllooowww, long overdue revolution in cars: making them run on hydrogen (it’s so simple!).
In addition to all this fun – and I am now absolutely convinced that working for Honda MUST be fun, spending all day building really big jigsaws and solving the world’s ills, with even coffee-breaks providing an opportunity for uber-geekness – Honda’s latest series of ads still, occasionally, employs the deep voice. In their case, it’s the deep voice of one Garrison Keillor, who, I imagine unlike most other voiceover artists, seems to have, like, a career and everything. He even does a radio show which is broadcast right here in the UK on BBC 7, apparently. A bit of me wishes he was my dad (I feel the same way about Patrick Stewart. Is it a deep voice thing?).
So there you go, I quite like those ones. Pity poor Lurpak, then, who could be forgiven for assuming that a similar heady brew of quick-fire visuals shot in what they thought was a new and exciting way married with another really deep voice would be ad gold – instant likeability and, unlike Honda who are convincing you to part with thousands of your hard-earned wodge, people might actually buy more Lurpak as a result.
Sadly, none of these things happened. Instead I have to endure force-induced motion sickness as their super-macro camera tracks knives slicing beetroot LIKE IT’S FLESH; hot, gooey white bread (isn’t it supposed to be bad for you or something?) being mucked about as though the makers of Saw had been commissioned to remake the Marks & Spencer ads; and above all, a deep-goddamn-voice that really, really irritates. According to one forum thread, it might be Rutger Hauer. God help me.
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