Deja View: Bonnie Tyler for Westpac 2012 versus Bonnie Tyler for MasterCard 2010: too similar?
Is the latest DDB Australia spot for Westpac featuring Bonnie Tyler and her hit ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ a bit too similar to the MasterCard spot featuring Bonnie Tyler and her hit ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ launched by McCann-Erickson, London back in 2010?
Credits for the Westpac spot:
Executive Creative Director – Darren Spiller
CD’s – Glen Dickson, Steve Crawford
Copywriters – Glen Dickson, Robbie Brammall, Eamonn Dixon
Art Director – Darren Spiller
Agency Producer – Tuesday Picken
Head of Broadcast – Simon Thomas
Account Management – Andrew Little, Veronica Makiv, Kristofer Taylor
Director – Craig Gillespie
Producer – Emma Wilcockson, Deb Tiejen
Production Company – MJZ
Editor – Peter Sciberras, Method
Music & Talent – Jen Taunton, Level 2
Sound Design – Colin Simkins, Gusto Music.
40 Comments
The one thing they have in common is that they’re both very pedestrian and unimpressive. There, I’ve said it.
ahhh DDB. All class.
They are completely different – the Mastercard one is good.
Well. One’s shit and one’s alright. Clue. The UK one is alright.
Why would you try and replicate that.
Both awful.
Can you show me it before its made?
The Mastercard version is heaps better.
DDB déjà vu.
Australian tourism tvc and national geographic tvc.
Pretty sure no creative would want to replicate an ad they’ve seen before. Particularly one like this.
Darren…….
Agree with Pure Coincidence. Do you really think that if the creatives concerned were aware this ad existed they would have used the same tune and the same singer? There are other tunes to choose from, you know. Maybe they could be blamed for not doing due diligence to check its use, but that’s it. The only person I can see that this reflects badly on is Bonnie Tyler’s management for conveniently forgetting to mention it to DDB and Westpac.
They’re both awful, BT looks grotesque in both, but the most obvious clue that Westpac was styled on the Mastercard spot is that in both films the guitarist is playing a flying V.
Not a lot of people would know that.
Didn’t this ad come out of Melbourne?
Turn around, Bright Eyes. It’s the saaaame. Turn around, Bright Eyes…
There is no way they didn’t know that other ad was around.
Why Tyler?
Wespac’s marketing except for the Palace stuff has been rather lame for years.
Would be interesting to see the ROI in 6 months
Definitely zero chance it’s a deliberate rip-off. More likely the script was written, and they had to parachute in whatever washed-up 80’s star they could afford.
At least the creatives got a junket to the US even if it is poorly made and the story badly told. Is it meant to be a fantasy or a flashback? Or maybe it’s meant to be bad, in which case it succeeds.
Nice of Ms. Tyler to give them a head’s up.
Wow. Bonnie Tyler is a massive sell out.
Sorry but even if it was coincidental – when the agency said they wanted to use Bonnie Tyler, a search would have been carried out to a) see what FInancial Services work she had endorsed and b) where the song had been used. I’m sure this would have come in the search especially as it Mastercard was made in 2010. Pretty standard stuff really….
Would have thought it was just coincidental use of the same cheesy power ballad until the metal guy with the Flying V guitar comes in. That’s the smoking gun. Sorry, someone had to have known.
DDB Australia means it was done in the Sydney office. There are enough CDs in that place who worked in the UK during 2010 to know this had been done before.
Gen Y Hipster trend #69
Use 80’s rockers in 2012 ads. First Farnsy in Ford. Now Bonnie for Westpac. And no doubt there are more that I couldn’t remember to quote.
PS. The MC ad is more in the genre of AAM’s Rhonda & NAB’s rewards than Westpac’s version of the singy songy thingy.
Wonder how the client’s feeling about this today?
Yes, hard to imagine that no one knew. My theory, for what it’s worth is all the new work we’ve seen thus far looks like the pitch work shamelessly targeted right at the client. From the jingoistic ‘brand’ work, to the reanimated (in more ways than one) Bonnie Tyler spot, this is work designed to push client buttons. And there’s been no scrambling back up that slippery slope…
Bitch bitch bitch
You guys are pathetic always pulling ideas down. No wonder the global advertising community thinks the local Australian industry is a caustic joke. Well done for reinforcing the wider industry belief.
As Mark Twain once said ” a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get it’s boots on.”
Remember Ausie advertising hacks are not the target for most advertising. No one cares what you think or cares to hear your conspiracy theories.
Generous of Wombat to speculate that there is an idea in this ad.
There’s a big difference between pulling ideas down and calling “plagiarism”, Wombat. You are completely on your own on this, naive or both. The only winner in this is Bonny Tyler who has now not only collected a large fee from two ad agencies for an old hit, but discovered the secret of eternal life – albeit in the bloated carcass of someone vaguely resembling her former self.
This is just another one of those TV ads where ‘reality’ invades someone’s fantasy. There are quite a few of them.
I think it was recently done for an ice cream or tropical drink: the woman was imagining that she was on a tropical island when her fantasy was interrupted/ ruined by a plumber or tradesperson who was doing work in her home..
This is not something to be laughed off as Wombat does. Do we really want our industry to be seen as one that applauds and defends shysters? In the past couple of years, we’ve had quite a good press. Mad Men has sparked interest in advertising and Gruen has analysed campaigns and ideas for us in a thoughtful and constructive way. Clients see that people in our industry work hard to communicate insights about brands, what turns people on, what makes sales.
Clients deserve our best thinking and they should be presented with work that is appropriate for and builds their brands, not some lazy channelling of an idea that someone else did first for another brand in another country.
Ripping off ideas and selling them to a client is fraud. Westpac should ask for their money back.
Gee, my post has gone.
I guess that’s a sure sign the lawyers made a call.
Trouble is, they can’t touch me, cos they know I’m right.
The agency should be feeling pretty shitty about not doing enough research to avoid duplicating an existing ad, and well, doing a really bad version of it.
I’d be a very angry client right about now.
Can’t wait to see if Gruen pick this up and run with it.
Total eclipse of the fart.
The last I heard this ad was going to end with Carlton from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air singing the Theme song from the Greatest American Hero, while doing his Carlton dance. Did the client get cold feet or wasn’t he available? Think I may have preferred that version.
I can imagine the director on the shoot, “now Bonny we’re just going to get you to belt out the old classic while we launch our guitar playing talent up for a solo” miss Tyler “no worries I think I know exactly what you mean”
Blatant plagiarism DDB, shame on you and anyone defending the coincidence theory.
All I could think was how similar the Mastercard spot was to the original Rhonda TVC for AAMI.
I have now watches the westpac ad repeatedly 17 times and it cracks me up everytime. The MasterCard ad is good but it is the westpac ad is priceless. I can’t stand Westpac but have to applaud them on this masterpiece. There are so many moments that just kill me. Great job.
This probably a site for wannabe advertising students (I honestly have no idea) but I’m just a consumer who found this site because I wanted to know what agency did my favourite ad at the moment. I’m obviously not from the industry so I’m not as outraged as you all by the apparent plagiarism you all see, but guess what – I have a mortgage and I use banks. Daily. It sure beats watching those LAME ANZ ads with Simon Baker.
Hey guitar nerd, that’s not a flying v in the mc ad, pretty obvious I thought. A lot of people would know that.