One Alfa Romeo Super Bowl Ad Bore a Striking Resemblance to This 2013 Lincoln Brand Film

By Patrick Coffee 

Advertising creatives often accuse each other of pitching and producing unoriginal ideas. We are relatively new to this game so we can’t be sure, but the back-and-forth has almost certainly been going on since a bunch of people first got together to make money by producing promos for other businesses. Hell, it probably happened in-house too.

The latest such debate, according to our eyes and one obviously offended tipster, concerns one of the four ads that FIAT Chrysler ran during Sunday’s Big Game. This one promoted its limited edition 2017 Alfa Romeo Giulia sports car, which starred in a whopping three spots (read: $15 million) during the broadcast.

About two years ago, Chrysler said Doner and The Richards Group would advertise the line. Then it allegedy went to DDB Chicago. But the ad in question was created by a production company called Art Machine, which is the quiet part of the Trailer Park organization.

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Here it is.

Now here is “Journey,” a late 2012/early 2013 Lincoln brand film credited to WPP’s Team Detroit, which is currently known as GTB. (Our initial tipster said it was produced by the Lincoln team at Hudson Rogue, but note the credits on Vimeo.)

Some similar themes and images here, but then these are both car ads. They often overlap.

At least one person, however, was so convinced about the former ripping the latter that he or she created this side-by-side comparison.

Soooo, those particular scenes looked almost identical. But is this as overt as, say, the “binge candle?”

We’ve reached out to Hudson Rogue, GTB and Art Machine asking whether the newer work was directly inspired by the Lincoln film. GTB and HR haven’t responded, and Art Machine said they’d get back to us but have yet to do so.

Commence with the opinionated infighting.

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