Devils advocating? So that's what you were doing. Gee for a while there I thought you meant that any Badlander had the "assumption of plagiarism" and that this "is dangerous, not to mention a bit cheesy and easy" and you were demanding that I talk to the creative teams of each badlander I've posted - all 156 of them - although I already have in quite a few cases and not every badlander has the assumption that people plagiarise on purpose. But you knew that, right? Because you've read all the badlander posts I've made, and understood all my snarks, in-jokes and times when I've stated plainly "it's just a coincidence". Right. Ok, just checking.

Other peoples Badlanders don't get your devils advocating so for a moment there I figured you had something against mine alone, or even just me since you strayed off the subject of the badland pair and onto suggesting I stop posting them. Perhaps it had something to do with that dinosaur doo-doo story last year in the globe and mail that Claymore posted where you knew a lot more about the case than the Globe and Mail, so much one would think that you worked on the campaign. Perhaps not. Heck, sometimes you even make your own they might be plagiarising comments. Am I to conclude that it's ok when everyone else, including you, do it then? As long as I don't? OK. Just so we're clear.

As for this badland pair, yes indeed it does look like the execution of the Coke Spot has borrowed quite a lot from Joel Veitch's by now world-famous style, and music to boot even though that's just a simple ska-beat. Here's where it gets interesting, IMHO YMMV, the execution is actually copyrightable. Photos are too. Illustrations and music are as well. But Ideas aren't. We work in a business where the ideas are the core commodity, this is what we sell, plus the craft and skills of executing it properly. I'm fascinated by the way that ideas do travel, and work on their own agenda appearing in two peoples heads at the same time.
And I'm kinda pissed that what we rely on to be the better creative team, the better agency, the cooler brand is the only thing we can't legally protect. You can not patent or copyright ideas. Advertising is an entire business built on the trading of a commody that anyone can steal! First one who makes it to the award show wins! :) This is interesting.
Some pairings are so easy, where the idea is to shape the juice-package like an orange for example that it's clear two teams could reach that just by thinking for ten minutes. Others are more interesting, where the same visual is conveying two different ideas, or where two TV commercial scripts in two different languages are almost identical. In such media rich times can we really do anything original, because aren't we always giving a nod to someting before it? This is fun to talk about, because coincidences happen, and sometimes they don't. In my humble opinion, your milage may vary.

And I'll leave the irony out, where the b3ta community get upset that their stuff is nicked, while probably 100% of their stuff is actually infringing other peoples work, using copyrighted photos and all that. They're aware of it, I'm sure.