Thursday, December 06, 2012

Did a German ad agency steal an idea to make these charming Lego ads?




(click, via)
Hamburg's Jung von Matt last week flooded the Internet with this admittedly very appealing campaign for Lego. But, was the idea was ripped right from a Google Image search?
Who cares, right? That's what we do: appropriate, and call it our own.
We'll see what the Gods of Cannes say.
Anyway, how many of these Lego cartoon characters can you I.D.?
See comments for answers.
And click here to see three previous Cannes Lion-winning Lego campaign.

14 Comments:

Blogger copyranter said...

Top to Bottom, Left to Right:
Simpsons
South Park
Smurfs
TMNT
Donald Duck and boys
Bert & Ernie

10:54 AM  
Blogger KJF said...

All of them !

The Simpsons
South Park
The Smurfs
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (I didn't get it at first)
Donald Duck, Huey, Dewey and Louie
Sesame Street

12:35 PM  
Anonymous Pincuid said...

This also seems like a very likely source of inspiration :

http://wins.failblog.org/2011/09/07/epic-win-photos-minimal-cartoons-win/

and also this

http://www.flickr.com/photos/infinitecontinues/4865893771/

2:28 PM  
Anonymous cath said...

Didn't get it until I saw Bert and Ernie, who were obvious to me right away. Then glanced back at the others and they, too, were suddenly obvious. It was neat, like learning to read.

9:29 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

thanks for the answers! and i thought those were a takeoff on some bar graphs showing data. hmmm... there is an idea for the next ad:

having problems with trying to present complex data in a meaningful way? with e-z graph, everyone can understand it! (image of lego block bar graphs).

I-)

9:35 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

the next step - familiar corporate logos done in that style?

I-)

9:37 AM  
Anonymous jimmyjazz said...

how effective are these ads if you have to be told so much to 'get it'?

great idea once someone tells you what to look for. the copy doesn't really do that.

11:03 AM  
Anonymous Tom said...

Nobody seems to concerned that the idea was stolen. Sadly, the new normal.

1:11 PM  
Anonymous jimh said...

All of them!

4:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The South Park was obvious for me, from the first moment. Then Simpsons, and the rest followed.

Very nice idea, even if "re-used". Did have problem with TMNT though... I completely forgotten those reptile fellas :)

4:54 AM  
Blogger laura l. sweet said...

Inspired, ripped-off, re-invented. Whatever you'd like to call it, I feel the need to point out the artists who did this first.

After spotting a piece of original barcode-like artwork by Ashley Browning of Infinite Continues (http://www.infinitecontinues.n... on a forum, artist crumpuppet was inspired to turn cartoon and pop culture characters into similar minimal color block art (http://www.somethingawful.com/....

Those images were then turned into Lego versions for these Imagine ads by Jung Von Matt.

Just want to give credit where credit is due.

Laura Sweet
If It's Hip, It's Here

2:24 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Obviously, it's not an original idea, but neither does the ad claims so... BTW: when was the last time you saw ads or commercials featuring credits for their source(s) of inspiration?

It's still a great, well-executed and inspiring ad that gets the message across. And it got a smile on my face :)

4:35 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why are you rewarding this garbage by publicizing it? This IS NOT a real ad campaign, and could never actually be used to advertise anything (can you imagine the licensing problems of any brand promoting itself in this manner?). This is a knock-off of ideas that have been around for years, built by kids, LEGO fans, etc. There are hundreds of photos of this showing up at LEGO conventions months ago. The ad agency claiming to have come up with this should be ashamed of their unoriginality, fraud, and plagiarism. I expect better than this from copyranter.

This is not the first time a sleezy ad company has attempted to steal existing photos, slap a logo on it, and call it an ad campaign. I would think that by now, any blog that discusses ad campaigns would be able to identify this sort of bullshit.

2:39 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jung von Matt is notorious for this kind of shameless theft.

Jung von Matt is also infamous for SCAM.

What's worse, this isn't the only time they have created SCAM using a flagrantly stolen idea.

Jung von Matt should be ashamed of themselves. But, judging from their work, they aren't capable of any such response.

1:50 PM  

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