Berocca

Advertising types can sometimes be wonderfully creative- see last week’s post on Magners for an example of this (although I guess that the Calbee advert was also inventive, in a shocking Japanese film-noir kind of way). On other occasions they just blatantly steal an idea from one of the creative souls that populate the Internet. Take Berocca’s treadmill advert:



Now if you spent much time on the internet a couple of years ago- during the early days of Youtube- you will no doubt have seen OK Go’s video for “Here It Goes Again” (sorry I can’t embed it, but apparently EMI doesn’t appreciate a bit of free publicity) featuring treadmills, being used in a creative and humorous way. A good, creative, reasonably inexpensive music video.
This Berocca ad on the other hand, steals the initial idea of (mis)using several treadmills placed alongside each other, and then places it in a grey concrete square, with some people who seem to lack any kind of charisma. Although props to the guy in the suit for trying, he gives the impression that he wears a novelty tie to work as a replacement for his personality.

Or maybe that’s just what the advert is trying to say: If you lack originality, cover it up with someone else’s idiosyncratic designs.