Kraft's 'The Ditcher' has familiar ring to it Like nearly all companies, Kraft wants to connect with the kids outside of TV. For its DiGiorno Pizza for One brand, it had AKQA build an online application called “The Ditcher” that will call or text a pre-set excuse to leave an unfortunate situation, from a bad date to an endless meeting. The messages range from the alarming (your kid is in trouble) to the ridiculous (the monkey escaped). Pretty clever, no? Maybe not all that original, though. Cell companies have offered similar services for years. Virgin’s “Rescue Rings,” rolled out 18 months ago, offered subscribers a way out of a disastrous date—you’d text a short code to Virgin, and 10 minutes later, you’d get a short message back from Richard Branson. Cingular (now AT&T) has been on this even longer. In 2004, it added an “Escape-a-Date” feature that let users preset a call as a readymade excuse to weasel out of an awkward encounter. Everyone in the ad business obsesses over the originality of ideas in TV and print ads—does the same hold true for tech applications? —Posted by Brian Morrissey

April 23, 2008 in Morrissey | Permalink

Comments

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That's always a tough call Brian.
As a creative, you always want to think that your original ideas are yours alone and you're aware that cribbing ideas from elsewhere is a form of cheating.

But where to draw the line is always tricky.

From a client perspective, if I say, owned a small local bakery in Atlanta and saw an ad that I liked while on vacation in South Africa for a small local bakery in Cape Town, there's no logical reason I wouldn't recreate something similar for myself when I got back to Atlanta.

But if I was the bakery's ad agency, and the South African ad had just won a gold pencil at The One Show, then yeah, I'd object strenuously to recreating a variation of it. But in fact, if we weren't violating any copyright laws, I really wouldn't have much of a leg to stand on.

It gets trickier still with borrowing from non-ad ideas. There are dozens of examples of people finding small films or paintings or videos or posters or whatnot that appear to be the "inspiration" for award-winning ads. Were they? If it's not a direct copy, does it matter?

The DiGiornio example is a gray area. It's been done before, but if the DiG audience isn't familiar with it, then it might seem new. (Not familiar enough with those categories to venture a guess as to overlap.)

Bigger question is what the tie-in is? I get the tie-in when a mobile phone company sends me a text message to escape a bad date. Virgin & AT&T sell text messages. What's Di Giorno's tie-in?

Posted by: Toad | Apr 23, 2008 10:16:00 AM

Toad,
Very true. I think there's more of a gray area when you get to applications. In tech, it's not just the idea but the execution. That's what makes it different from coming up with an ad concept, right?

DiGiorno wants to promote the idea that sometimes you just want to veg out at home with a single-serve pizza. The Ditcher, I suppose, is a tool to make this happen.

Posted by: Brian Morrissey | Apr 23, 2008 10:19:45 AM

I can assure you that in the tech world, originality is of the utmost importance. Ask the guys that sued Zuckerberg.

Posted by: Ian Schafer | Apr 23, 2008 10:26:36 AM

Toad's right. It's tricky. Make you wish you worked for a national TV network where cloning an idea (one that involves nannies or lyrics for example) seems to raise no eyebrows or litigation.

Posted by: American Copywriter | Apr 23, 2008 1:18:26 PM

Good points. How could Jaws win an Academy Award when it obviously took its plot from Beowulf? Outrage.

Posted by: Brian Morrissey | Apr 23, 2008 1:30:32 PM

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