Fully Meh

As the long time reader of the blog will remember one of my favorite pieces of sports action film is the intro to Fully Flared, the Spike Jonze directed skate film.  The sense of anticipation is genius.

So it's a bit disappointing to see it bastardized. 

Not because this is an example of an ad agency "ripping off" Spike.  Maybe they did, maybe he himself ripped off someone else, I don't know.  Playing who thought of it first is a fools game and the purpose of this blog isn't to "bust" creatives of idea theft and call them lazy.  What disappoints is how poorly this wonderful original reference was used.  The end product is just some generic "lifestyle" skateboarding shots without any actual sense of emotion, drama, anticipation or anything really.  Just some pretty advertising pictures.

Mexico has some of the most incredible artists and the agency grabbed some very sweet boarders.  Too bad they didn't put that to work and create something new, or even process Spike's work.  They clearly had the budget and seemingly sound strategy to work from.  Too bad the client and agency didn't grab the opportunity to do something great.

Comments

[Chris]

They ripped off Fully Flared so bad that they even lifted the same graffiti for the storyboards:

http://www.mediabistro.com/agencyspy/bbdo/the_snickersbbdo_mexico_fully_flared_rip_off_pdf_109248.asp?c=rss

[Jason Landry]

Ouch. It doesn't get much more blatant than that.

[James Chutter]

Another candy blunder:
New Skittles looks pretty similar to Modernista;
http://skittles.com/
http://modernista.com

[Brett Macfarlane]

We can add Aero to that list too -

http://ihavegoodtaste.tumblr.com/post/82950028/so-last-week-it-was-bbdo-ripping-off-lakai-this

[JP Holecka]

Brutal! Sometimes when an agency "get inspired" they take it to the next level and ad value. Not here. It's odd that people think they can get away with this.

Fully Meh

JP