Repost This on Your Site!Every great direct response copywriter can tell you what a valuable thing it is to have a “swipe file,” that burgeoning bin or desktop folder of winning promos crafted by other copywriters.
The idea, of course, isn’t to rip off the best of your colleagues… but rather to read, see what’s working, and use that to get your own creative juices flowing.
Not everybody gets that. Some people understand the concept, but go ahead and plagiarize anyway. Not good, folks.
And it looks like it’s not just a problem in direct mail or online advertising. For instance, Don Hauptman recently sent me a clip from the New York Times that Madison Avenue pros might be taking the, er, “borrowing” technique a bit too far.
Honda Motors and the Subway sandwich shop chain, both have ads out there centered on the old “Odd Couple” sitcom theme song. Coincidence? Maybe.
Maybe so, too, for Visa and the “Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium” movie trailer, which both featured the same instrumental piece of music in their commercials… borrowed from the 1985 movie, “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.”
Or the three ads from Dell, Sears, and Wal-Mart respectively — each with the “make holiday wishes come true” storyline. And the movie trailer for the new “Beowulf” movie, which harkens back to the campaign advertising the blockbuster flick “300.”
Lots of ideas strike lots of people at the same time.
But it just goes to show you, you’ve got to work that much harder to be original with your message.
