Arkitektkopia makes copies a breeze - but is their campaign a copy?

I'm unsure where to place this one, Arkitektkopia has released a very creative campaign - the media itself is quite fun - on the streets of Stockholm right now. The idea is simple, since Arkitektkopia provides great copies, the ads are simply copies of things found on and off the streets in the hood around Stureplan (which is Stockholm's Madison Avenue).

For example, rain drains. Which one is live and which one is memorex? (read more). Hat tip to Swedish adforum Bold for the Arkitektkopia campaign.

The idea for the campaign was hatched by Kerstin Särnefält (Art director) working with Peter af Rolén (Copywriter) - they are both freelancers as creative guns for hire.


On this 'rock' the copy puns: "...make copies just a stones throw away"

The campaign might even be a victim of it's own success, as Anders Overland from Arkitektkopia tells us that it will only run for a month.
- "The biggest problem we have is that people keep stealing the images, which means we have to make new ones all the time and I think we'll tire of this within a month."
I bet you will, that rock-copy must be stolen at least once every weekend.

Now, I wouldn't be me if I didn't say that this idea rings a bell... I kinda thought I saw something very similar recently, for another printing shop.... namely Look printing. These ads were in Lürzers Archive issue 3 in 2004.

The tagline reads: we just love to print and shows off Look Printing's skills in making prints that look like walls or streets. Why the idea is so similar you'd think it was a copy.

Naturally, it could be a coincidence - if you had a copy-shop as a client wouldn't you want to make copies of things to sell them? ;) I know I would, it's ingenious in it's simplicity.

Update! We found another copy-campaign to add to the mix.

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Anonymous Adgrunt's picture
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caffeinegoddess's picture

Wow. They are both good ideas (especially since they are really the same idea). I think unless there were others for Look, the Arkitektkopia one is better in that they do some more crazy ones, like that rock.

Dabitch's picture

yeah, we all dig the rock. There's also a phonebooth! nuts!

payote's picture

that ran back in 1998 or so... Out of Goodby, Silverstein & partners in San Francisco. Do a search on Archive's site for Hewlett-Packard/Jon Soto and you'll find 4 examples - the campaign had many more.

Andreas-Udd's picture

Perhaps you could do a search on L

Dabitch's picture

yep, I think payote means that one.....

Here's something different though, same kind of copy-of-brick visual, very different idea. :) For a German insurance company.

payote's picture

Right. The idea that the printer has such great color that it can replicate a real thing - the difference is that in the HP ads, the creatives 'added' something extra to the printout to make it not just a copy, but a prank. The best example is probably the ceiling with the printout of a spider on it at the girls' camp cabin.