Massive Coincidence Or Massive Rip?

An anonymous commenter has just pointed out this News of the World suggestion that the recent John Lewis ad (that, by the way, got big chunky mentions in the newspaper sections of both the Guardian and Observer on the weekend) is a rip-off of this Italian lingerie ad:

Now, this is an interesting question.

If you look through the comments on the original post, you’ll see that the technique was done 23 years ago for a John Lennon video:

Imagine (J.Lennon) – Zbigniew Rybczynski (1987) from Thomas Mantero on Vimeo.

And we now have an ad with the same ‘plot’, but which also uses the same track.

Hmmm…

Technique, plot and song all used before in very similar ways.

Ah, I’m torn between thinking it doesn’t matter and worrying that this post I put up on Friday has just come true in the most glaring way.

Time for a pint, I think.