Recently I was involved in a campaign that we blatantly stole from another very successful campaign. At least that is what some people say. Me, I would call it a remix. We mashed up a very successful idea with a different set of ingredients, contexts and spices and relaunched it with very open references to the original, and the campaign took off like mad crazy! Every major newspaper and most minor ones covered the story. The amount of exposure was just phenomenal, with little to no advertising budget. Here are just some examples:
http://www.vagabond.se/Redaktionellt/Nyheter/Sveriges-svenskaste-jobb/
http://www.dn.se/ekonomi/sveriges-svenskaste-jobb-1.866962
http://webbsverige.wordpress.com/2009/05/18/sveriges-svenskaste-jobb/
http://www.expressen.se/resor/1.1570203/sveriges-svenskaste-jobb
http://norran.se/nyheter/norrochvasterbotten/article289523.ece
http://stockholm.city.se/nyheter/16746/sok_sveriges_roligaste_sommarjobb
http://xing.blogg.se/2009/may/sveriges-svenskaste-jobb-utlyst.html
http://www.ot.fi/story.aspx?storyID=41431
http://www.utsidan.se/cldoc/15168.htm
http://www.gp.se/gp/jsp/Crosslink.jsp?d=913&a=495339
http://blogg.travelstart.se/2009/05/sveriges-svenskaste-jobb-.html
http://ltz.se/nyheter/inrikes/1.1045355
http://business.bulletin.se/news/more.aspx?ItemID=7162
http://www.nt.se/nyheter/artikel.aspx?articleid=5225329
http://www.expressen.se/resor/1.1570203/sveriges-svenskaste-jobb?standAlone=true&viewstyle=print
http://www.metro.se/2009/05/15/79953/ar-det-har-sveriges-basta-sommarjobb/index.xml
http://www.travelnews.se/Ovrigt/Vem-far-Sveriges-basta-jobb/
http://blogg.svd.se/resebloggen?id=13665
And here comes the interesting part – If this had been an original idea (assuming the existence of such a thing) it wouldn’t have come close to the exposure we now received.
There is a lesson here: By being honest and open we both benefited. We got massive exposure for our client because of all the references to the original campaign, and the original campaign looks even more remarkable when more people copy it. It becomes a classic.
This is the ReTweet of advertising. A mash up. A remix. Call it what you want. It worked. Beyond all expectations.
If we hadn’t been open about it on the other hand, it wouldn’t have been cool. It would have been a carbon copy without the reference, and this is actually exactly what is happening in a lot of trad-ads. Cut, copy, steal, but never lie.
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Brilliant! I figure this is somewhat universal too. With a little honesty, everything is open source…
To be honest, this is a new low point in the communication business. Despite what you say, it’s newer okay to steal. Newer. This is by far the worst I’ve seen.
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