Coming up with a great idea is ridiculously hard. Being lucky enough to have a client that understands and values that idea is unusual. Having the budgets, time and team to execute the idea at a high enough level to do it justice is a total-eclipse-of-the-sun rarity.
So how happy do you think the folks at TBWA/Chiat/Day were when they managed to get this beautiful spot produced for Nissan?
And then how depressed do you suppose they were when within days they saw this almost identical spot from Renault?
It happens all the time in our business that you come up with an idea only to see it somewhere else. I remember once handling a call from a recent ad school grad who was furious. A campaign we had created had been winning some awards and we claimed we had ripped the idea off him. None of us had ever heard of him or seen his portfolio, but when he sent me his campaign, I could see why he was pissed. They were pretty darn similar. But that’s how it goes, we both had the same idea for a similar client. We just happened to be lucky enough to get ours out into the public eye first.
So what about Nissan and Renault? Who got there first? Going back to the source YouTube videos, Nissan uploaded theirs on May 26, and Renault uploaded theirs on… May 26?
OK, that struck us as downright weird. The same idea? Sure. The same kind of execution? Yeah, we could see that. But the exact same date? No way.
So we asked our friend Google, and though we couldn’t find specifics on the advertising itself, we were reminded of the “Renault-Nissan Alliance” formed a few years ago. Apparently this alliance must include sharing advertising ideas between the companies and producing them separately. We’ve never heard of an arrangement like that, have you?
I like Nissan’s more because they used real gas engines. Renault’s don’t look quite right because, well, they’re electric.