Coke does it

February 21, 2010 - 10:55 AM by

Could the world’s soft drink giant be ripping off Israeli chocolate milk maker Yotvata?

Very possibly. It seems that Coca-Cola had a Super Bowl commercial last Sunday titled “Sleepwalker,” and it showed a guy getting up in the middle of the night and sleepwalking to a fridge with bottles of Coke in it. Let me say that the two ads are extremely similar, from the music, plot to even the placement of the moon in the background.

A Coca-Cola spokeswoman told “Advertising Age” that any similarities to the Yotvata Dairy ad were coincidental.

“Advertising Age” quotes Coca-Cola spokeswoman Susan Stribling as saying, “When we created the Coca-Cola ‘Sleepwalker’ commercial, we and our agency were unaware of this other ad. Now that we’ve seen the ad, we think both commercials are equally entertaining. While the two share a few common elements, any similarities are coincidental and unintended.”

Until now, Yotvata hasn’t made any complaints about the Coke ad, and according to a Globes articles, Israeli analysts said that the “near-imitation” could be considered flattery by Israel’s marketing industry. Which, of course, is just hilarious. But not unheard of. I’ve experienced more than one instance of Israeli copycat flattery. I’ve had articles published in the New York Times that were then translated and copied, word for word, in the Israeli press. When it was about the secondary mortgage market in Israel, the article in Yediot Achronot read, “The New York Times says…” blah blah blah.

Nice workaround, no? But alas, I, the writer, never got any credit. Ditto for Yotvata.

Tags: , , , , • Category: Art, Business, design, General, Israeliness, Pop Culture, tv 

Comments

One Comment on Coke does it

  1. Rachel Neiman on Sun, Feb 21st 2010 2:53 PM

    2. So, only “a few common elements” are shared and that is completely coincidental? Set aside the extremely similar visuals and just listen: they both use Ravel’s “Bolero” as the soundtrack!

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