The translation on this one is something close to:
“Life is full of obstacles.
When you pass one, along comes another,
And then another one, and then another one.
And they come even more difficult.
Sometimes I think life will be full of challenges.
I hope so, because I am hungry for more.”
Above you’ll see two videos. The top is a commercial from BBDO Mexico for Snickers. The bottom one is called Fully Flared and was created by Lakai, directed by Ty Evans, Spike Jonze and Cory Weincheque. This is a seminal skate video. Fully Flared has its own wikipedia entry. This is the kind of thing that common sense would tell you not to mess with it.
Apparently, that’s what BBDO Mexico has done. The agency could not be reached for comment. However, that has not stopped The Berrics, a private skatepark and website run by professional skaters, Steve Berra and Eric Koston, are leading an online charge against BBDO. They’ve posted the Snickers spot on their heavily trafficked site under the heading “BBDO Atrocity” and “thank” the agency for their “creativity.” Nasty.
Berra sent us this comment via email:
“Unfortunately, the only thing the 30 million plus skateboard kids will see in that commercial is that Snickers ripped off the most influential skateboard video director ever, Ty Evans. Along with one of the most influential film/commercial/music video directors ever, Spike Jonze, who together collaborated to make the most electrifying and creative introductions to the most influential skateboard video for sure within the last decade (if not of all time). And it wasn’t even Snickers who was the culprit. It was BBDO. And they got paid, actual money for stealing.
It’s no surprise, I mean, look at television commercials these days, awful. They gotta farm their ideas somewhere because the creative revolution certainly isn’t happening inside their offices. There are better ideas on 17 year old kid’s blogs living in Omaha, Nebraska than in the advertising world. We see on our analytics programs that these ad agencies come on our site every day. We know they’re looking for ideas. It’s sad.
The thing about it is, I like Snickers and I’d like for them to actually be involved with skateboarding, but BBDO may have caused them irreparable damage. One of the many emails we received about it called for a boycott of all Mars products and proceeded to list every brand under their umbrella. Skateboarders don’t like it when you steal something that’s theirs because that’s exactly what it is, theirs.”
The YouTube posting of the BBDO Mexico video is suffering in the comments, as well: “Half of the skateboarding world is not gonna buy snickers ever again!” And, “Snickers can get fucked. total bull shit. i [sic] thought that car ad a few months ago was bad enough. I hope Spike and Ty fuck their shit up.”
Now, nothing is original. However, does that mean that agencies can co-opt an important piece of a culture for their own ends? Inspiration or not, the decision by BBDO Mexico to use the exact concept is well, just stupid. Think it through kiddos. You aren’t just nibbling. You’re regurgating. Unlike movies, where inspiration and ideas can be shouted in the credits, a broadcast spot is just .30 sec of imagery. Still, there was an easy solution to this creative dilemma. Put Spike Jonze in the background. Get Ty to do the voice over. Whatever. Work the culture into your spot. Show some respect or well, suffer.
As we move towards a more open source, wiki culture, agencies need to realize that those ideas are communal efforts. They are a group of people working in concert for a greater good. There was nothing communal about this BBDO spot and that’s what is pissing the skate community off. Simply put – BBDO could have just asked.
Thanks again to The Berrics, from whom we borrowed the Snickers video after it was pulled from YouTube.