In my opinion, it's one of those ideas that are so obvious that I wouldn't necessarily think it's plagiarism.
> It's a small electronic device that replaces so many real world things. It's like all these things 'zipped' into one... Okay good idea, but how do we make it look cool?... Epic music... And Explosions!
The ad is actually less embarrassing than the fact that how uncreative this is.
On the other hand, it's also hard to imagine that a bunch of people working in the ad business / phones / creative marketing, and not one of them said while working on this ad: "hey guys, aren't we just redoing that phone ad from 15 years ago?"
> how uncreative this is ... aren't we just redoing that thing from 15 years ago?
People of a certain age are informed by shared cultural touchstones.
Those making ads in these timeframes are ages where they all experienced the Star Wars trash compactor scene as a visceral moment pressed into their psyches:
As a child, the blasters and light sabres are make believe, but the compactor closing in slowly on Luke, Leah, C3PO, that felt real. Kids could feel that big squeeze. It was ... VIVID.
When you start making create visual experiences (ads in particular), it's not uncommon you'll reference such touchstones. You'll get approved by marketing committees because they too have that touchstone in their pasts.
The original scene plots out as an increasing stress, but ends with a relief. Ad creatives often "quote" these if they feel they can match/replay the original emotional beats, here implied looming threat, visceral danger building agonizingly slowly, realization of total destruction, saved by suddenly revealed relief.
Nintendo, LG, and Apple all tried to have their "product placement" land in that surprise moment revealing the pressure relief: a sleight of hand where this moment, this thing, is the MacGuffin associated with the stress vanishing.
Is this uncreative? "Aren't we just redoing Star Wars New Hope?" Sure. But ads that connect to the beats of touchstones inside the viewer do evoke more reaction, and the ads aren't quoting each other, they're quoting the original.
Art often quotes art, the quoting considered both creative and effective.
On the other hand if your product has become a commodity and the new version barely changes from the previous one, you are entering detergent advertising territory.
Wow, you're not exaggerating. That actually does bring a legitimate accusation of plagiarism to the table. Compare 0:13 in the LG ad to 0:37 in the Apple version.
Never mind that the artwork itself looks straight out of DALL-E 2, with its orange-bluish cast. Who is calling the creative shots at Apple these days?!
The amber/teal stuff is mostly because it makes the foreground warmer and the backgrounds colder drawing the audience's focus. Or so the theory goes. I think it's just more of a case of "fuck it, no one is going to complain if we do this"
Check out the transformers films - those are the canonical punch in the face in that department.
That's what I really want to figure out. I feel like I wouldn't have a problem with it if I knew it was 100% fake and not actual items being destroyed.
Eh, It's a pretty obvious premise. I think it's reasonable for two creative teams to come up with the same unoriginal/uninteresting premise. The execution of the Apple version is also miles ahead.
LG in 2008 was not on Japanese people's map regarding to phones, their "Chocolate" line was an utter failure that got the brand promptly forgotten. I doubt that spot was even aired in Japan.
and to your claim, no. its a minor player (far behind the Japanese makers). You will have a hard time finding anything with a LG logo in stores in Japan. the market is heavily skewed towards local players.
If you claim is that LG makes parts used in phones sold under other brands - then sure - it's present in that sense. But LG as a brand name to sell products has poor recognition / poor value perception in Japan.
Not specific to LG, from the chart. Seems like all brands, including Sony are an afterthought. (Note that LG doesn't currently sell LG branded phones. They sell to other brands.)
Following your rationale, I'd guess the top selling brand is getting backlash specifically because it's the top selling brand by a large margin. And other brands, like LG, can make "outrageous" ads without causing outrage because Japanese people either don't see or don't care about ads from brands that don't hold a majority market share.
Is that close to what you're saying? If so, is that true for other market segments? It'd be interesting to note. I don't know that I have a similar example for the US market.
The (accidental?) plagiarism of the ad is nearly as bad as the vibe.