Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Coke hates kittens

AKA "Large corporation in 'behaving like bastards' shock."

Looky-loo, coca cola rips off my mate's band's video!

This is Seven Seconds of Love original video 'Ninja'
This is the Coke Advert

Normally I find this sort of thing a bit tricky, as it's hard to copyright ideas and so on. But this one is taking the piss somewhat. A man explains via the medium of pulling faces.

The sad thing is, I know the band as a whole to have the moral fibre of a jellybaby, and would probably have handed over the entire video rights for fifty pence and a collective handjob.

Coca cola, you have lost my trust. As a brand, you are in my eyes diminished. The red in your logo now stands, as far as I am concerned, for the blood of the innocent, creative, kitten-animating artist, trampled in the rush to make your product seem both 'hip' and 'now'. I hate you. Coca Cola, I hate you utterly.

I won't be boycotting though, as I never drank the ghastly fizzy sugar syrup in the first place.




UPDATE: all right, yes, technically it's the ad agency who ripped them off. But now Coke have been alerted to the crime via m'blog, and HAVE CHOSEN TO DO NOTHING. So it's okay to be cross with them still.

Also, as Richard has pointed out in the comments, Guiness/their ad agencies are bastards n'all. In fact there's a long and distinguished history of ad agencies whipping stuff from penniless creatives. There's probably a wiki somewhere.

*wanders off*

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's really quite ridiculous. You would have thought they could have tried to come up with their own music at least!

How did they find out then? Do they have Argenitinian friends who love diet coke?

James Henry said...

Coke have clearly underestimated the loyalty of Seven Seconds' Latin American fanbase. Those clearly-underestimating-the-loyalty-of-Seven-Seconds'-Latin-American-fanbase-ing fools.

My message would be: clearly underestimate the loyalty of Seven Seconds' Latin American fanbase at your peril.

Anonymous said...

How awful. Your friend must be so upset.

Coke have no shame.

Valerie Polichar said...

Grrble. This is foul in a couple of ways.

I love the guys at rathergood. They made "I like the moon," and that makes me inappropriately levels of happy.

And the rathergood guys *have* made advertisements. Not very successful or appealing advertisements, mind you. But still: they, or at least their work, is for sale. So surely they could have struck a deal with your buddy's band and cheerfully enriched everyone's pockets with a layer of sexy lint, or some such.

So wtf?! Coke has bucks. They don't need to stoop to petty ripoffs.

Grrble.

Mangonel said...

When I tried the Coke link, I got 'Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage'! Not even when I cut and pasted the link! I think Coca-Cola Corp is running scared! Golly the power of Blogging eh.

The man of many faces is extraordinary. Is he a personal friend? Where this comment goes from here is utterly dependent on your answer to that.

Anonymous said...

Meh- it worked for me! Can we hurt them? I could probably come up with a great cover story to get us into their headquarters in Argentina then we could.... (this is where my plan ideas are a bit.. non-existant) but I could attempt the Spanish-speaking part? Can we do it? Please!!

James Henry said...

The facey man is Rob Manuel from b3ta, apparently. I am glad he is using his powers for good.

Not sure what b3ta is either. I have so much to learn.

Billy said...

A collective handjob? You'd need big hands to do that.

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure how anyone can drink coke after that dissolving-a-penny-in-a-glass-of-it thing that teachers always seem to do at primary school. My mum wanted to show me what it did to a recently lost milk tooth however as this was my only source of income at the time I refused. Pretty grim though I imagine.

Anonymous said...

Hmmm, I saw this advert on regular good honest British telly, and though "ah, them guys witht the kittons from the internet have sold their work. Hope they got lots and lots of nice money".

This saddens me to see. First they steal water from people in Kerala, now this: have they no shame????

Anonymous said...

... or maybe it wasn't. No, I did. It was late at night. Possibly this saturday, hence the bleary recall.

patroclus said...

Much as I loathe the Coca-Cola corporation and all it stands for, I would point the finger of blame at its ad agency, rather than the toilet-cleaning behemoth itself.

patroclus said...

Unless Coke specifically asked the ad agency to make an ad like it, of course, which may be what the b3ta man is saying.

I'll go now, shall I?

Anonymous said...

Remember the Guinness advert of about ooh 10 years ago where bloke dances around in an odd fashion to odd music (yes Richard, brilliant description)? Completely ripped off from my mate Andy's university performance piece video. If he'd had the rightful money from that maybe he wouldn't have been forced to go on to create and write every episode of the Teletubbies.
Oh, re: the shouty man with the face- he's in the Biscuit Building, Redchurch Street, London E2. How's that for interior recognition skills?

Anonymous said...

This is the advert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvwIxyYg4Dg

Anonymous said...

coke sucks anyway - apart from when you put a c in the middle and take away the e - then many jokes are made about the drink but other then that it sucks - it's all about the pepsi - the cocca cola company have always been wvil and they wont stop untll we destroy them!!!

Ros x

Anonymous said...

Yep, I heard about this via b3ta the other day. (James, you have to plug yourself into b3ta, it's probably the most essential site on the internet after the BBC's What Not To Wear site and my mate Laura's film site).

Anywii... I am very shocked and I'm drinking as much Coke as I can so they run out of supplies and go bust.

My teeth hurt.

James Henry said...

Lalalalalalalalalalashutupshutupshutup

patroclus said...

b3ta is, like, *so* 2001.

Anonymous said...

Can I still drink diet coke.... I mean that won't really count will it.

James Henry said...

NO MORE COKE.

I had the last bit. That sip was for all of us.

Billy said...

Every time you drink Coke... they kill a kitten.

Mangonel said...

Search 'banned commercials' on youtube. The Mastercard one is hilarious, the kid in the supermarket is a gas, and the Pepsi one is awesome.

Anonymous said...

also rathergood.com did an american advert, didn't they? for quiznos i think it was yeah foudn it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZrks-BPeLQ

SO THIS ISN"T THE FIRST TIME THEY'VE SOLD OUT

Anonymous said...

Ooo, look, it made the news and that:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6228635.stm

llewtrah said...

If nothing else, Coke should make a goodwill payment.