Apple new “Intel” TV ad that bear a striking resemblance to a music video from The Postal Service for the song “Such Great Heights.” (The song is available on Apple’s U.S. iTunes Music Store, click song title).
Elite Productions has posted a side-by-side comparison of Apple’s “Intel” ad with the “Such Great Heights” music video by The Postal Service.
The similarities are striking and undeniable.
See Elite Productions’ video comparison of the original, unedited Apple ad on the left along with corresponding clips from the music video on the right (H.264 – 3 MB QuickTime 7 Compatible) here.
Elite Productions also has video capture still shots for comparison here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews reader “pvr” for the link. Attribution: mediamac.dk]
[UPDATE: 11:40pm ET: The ad and the music video were directed by the same directing duo. See related article below.]
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Related articles:
Meet the directing duo behind both Apple’s ‘Intel’ ad and The Postal Service’s music video – January 17, 2006
Lugz sends Apple cease-and-desist letter over Eminem iPod+iTunes TV commercial – November 04, 2005
Lugz boots ad agency ‘very upset’ about Apple’s iPod+iTunes eminem ad – October 25, 2005
Apple takes heat for Eminem iPod+iTunes ad’s similarity to 4-year-old Lugz spot – October 20, 2005
oh god…here we go again.
so? does somebody care? it’s all propaganda. as if someone in advertising has any artistic integrity. it’s all the same vomit.
Okay.. Maybe the Eminem iPod commercial was SORT of a rip off, but this thing is nearly IDENTICAL! YIKES!
Why, Apple, WHY?
Great minds think alike…
sheesh. Given the recent LUGZ debacle, you would’ve thought someone could’ve spotted that. ouch. I mean, there’s really nothing to argue when you see it side by side.
the links do not work.
I’ve got to say, only in the Mac community would people be digging this stuff up so quick. Good find, not a brilliant move on Apple’s part.
SJ needs to fire some people over this one — way to close for the company who’s slogan is “Think Different”
wow, disappointed! can apple get a new ad company
Well, in some regards not too surprising. Intel said they provided some ‘footage’ for the add – no doubt stock footage they provide anyone. The scrolling back out of the computer, well, how many times have you seen that effect? Be it out of a computer screen, out of a worm hole (earth worm not black holes), playing backwards a drop of milk, etc.
At this rate, Apple’s next commercial will feature urban males yelling “Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaassup!” as they use iChat AV.
“SJ needs to fire some people over this one — way to close for the company who’s slogan is “Think Different””
I agree. While both ads are good, the similarities are too…er…similar for this to be a coincidence.
Surely Apple use one or more advertising agencies to create their adverts for them… can’t they now sue them to hell and gone for having their creative name disparaged?
So they edited a vid to match some shots in the ad. Both vids concern chip manufacturing. Could the ad makers have cribbed a few camera angles and lens choices? Sure. Other than that, what’s the big deal? I don’t think slow dramatic pans to/from a closeup are new. Oh yeah, they both have bunny suited workers and chip making robot arms! Both color palettes are in stark techno black and white!
please…
Yeesh, Apple better just pay off these guys and have done with it fast, before they create another PR debacle…. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
Am I the only one who can’t access these links?
I even think one of the actresses in the videos is the same. Maybe they shot them the same day. =). I wonder if ‘She’ could shed some light on it.
It is funny eitherway. On the flip side, many people will not watch this commercial unless they are in the 55 and up crowd. [the music sends you to the other room for a cup of coffee].
cheers
^ Yes Jesus. ^
Anyway – I don’t see why Apple would copy off a music video of such a well-known artist. Are they targeting teens who like The Postal Service (which by the way, The Postal Service video is in syncronized w/the music, pretty neat), or did they just not expect people notice something to blatant?
There may be similarities, but each piece is simple documentary-style filmmaking set to music. The real repetiveness is the clean room subject matter, which incidentally, seems entirely mismatched with the postal service music (and the service apparently being advertised, for that matter. I just did not get that video).
The Apple footage is much better and the editing is tighter and more to the point, and it actually relates to the product being advertised. This style of video to music is done all the time. If you ask me, neither is strikingy original.
To be a copyright problem, a court would have to rule that the Apple photographer and editors actually had prior knowledge of the music video, and that they used it as a shooting and editing guide to replicate their piece, or that perhaps the ad executives who thought up the campaign used it as a guide in planning their original storyboard concept and shooting script.
In a famous infringment case, one advertising agency once did this when designing a magazine ad with a stolen still photograph. The clueless art directors then asked photographers to bid on replicating the look-and-feel of the orignal photo, and even invited the author of the original, comped photo to bid. But they awarded the bid to another photographer they usually worked with to save just a couple of hundred dollars. The A.D.’s took a copy of the original photo out on location with them and used it as a guide to replicate the mood of the original photo. The finished image and location scene used looked nothing like the orginal except that both photos depicted wheelchairs on porches.
The original photographer won an infringement award for $20-$30 thousand dollars (I don’t recall the exact value). The art directors screwed up when they asked the original photographer to bid on the project, but did not award it to him. They handed him the prior knowledge evidence he then used to initiate an infringement lawsuit…stupidty may have been their second crime…
I think this is less significant than the Eminem/Lugz comparison. That one was mostly a designer-created set of images, colors, etc. The Apple-Intel/Postal Service shots are two documentations of the same process and machinery, so of course they are going to look a lot alike.
I think the only striking similarities that aren’t inherent to the location are the close-up shots of the people, especially that the genders match exactly. But even then, the shots from the music video have been edited for the specific purpose of matching them to the Apple ad, so the similarity is somewhat contrived exaggerated. (I haven’t been able to watch the Postal Service video to see how much editing was done.)
Similarities? Watch the whole Postal Service video and you see that there really is no similarity in context except for the whole manufacturing process.
If you take what all of us have been typing, splice sentances together, and wow, you come up with portions of SJ’s keynote! Coincidence or is Apple copying the rest of us?
(/sarcasm)
Who cares . . . move on.
Oh, so the Postal Service is the name of a group! YIKES! Now I see why the video doesn’t work as an ad for the U.S. Postal Service. Talk about brain dead stupidity on my part…It’s 8 a.m. in California and I should go back to bed…
I have been in the design industry for over 16 years and believe me, there is no such thing as an original idea when it comes to marketing and advertising.
Every generation re-interprets the same old ideas but in a new way.
WOW.
I didn’t buy all that much into the Eminem ad being a rip off, but this one is just too damn similar to not have been seen by whoever made that commercial. Thats just crazy.
Forget about the song. The real problem is the ad, itself.
It’s just another fluff piece that does nothing to show off advantages of OSX.