Comercial Hijinx
Posted on November 22nd, 2004 by Daniel
For the past couple of weeks, Miller has been running an ad campain featuring football refs penalizing Bud Light drinkers, and replacing the Bud Light with Miller Light. Now, Budwiser has responded by hijacking the commercial theme, and having the refs stealing the Bud Light because they want it, not replacing Bud Light with a better beer. This is quite funny, and is the first example I can think of of one company hijacking another company’s commericals.
They arguably tried with the whole “president of beers” thing, but for my money they failed miserably. These referee ones are much better.
Also, I saw a netzero ripoff of an AOL commercial yesterday, in much the same vein. It was the one where all the aol members line up outside with some suggestions, and the lines “sir, there are some members here to see you,” “which ones?” “It looks like… all of them”. The entire netzero commercial was almost identical, but with the dialogue changed, e.g. “sir, there are some members leaving aol for netzero”, “which ones”, etc.
successful corporate innovation ==> imitation ==> lawsuit?
Yeah, Janette mentioned the President of Beers thing, but I didn’t see the ripoff one. I also haven’t seen the netzero one (although I’ve seen the AOL ones…). Apparently, this is becoming a trend… I wonder how long before the lawsuits? Before someone patents the copycat commercial?