Wednesday, February 10, 2010

It bears repeating...

I missed the original broadcast, but apparently the U.S. Air Force Reserve ran this ad during the Super Bowl (link HERE - via AdFreak)

Don't look for it on YouTube, or on the Reserves' recruiting site, in the news, or almost anywhere else. It's essentially been scrubbed from the Internet.

Why? If you're a White Stripes fan, you probably have a clue. From their site:



Despite the damning move of having eliminated the offending spot with extreme prejudice, the Air Force issued an official statement: "We had no intention to use existing music from The White Stripes or any other performer. Any similarity to them or other artists was certainly not intentional."

I don't buy it. I've been doing this long enough to know that clients and agencies do get "inspired" a little too literally by copyrighted material when scoring new ads. Particularly after finding out that the artist they wanted to use is either too expensive, or refuses to sell out.

Just five years ago, Tom Waits sued General Motors Corp. and McCann Erickson over an Opel ad that used a singer and musicians imitating his trademark style (after he turned them down).

For those of you unfamiliar with the White Stripes, here's the original song.

Judge for yourself:

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