CITY OF COLUMBIA PAYS THOUSANDS TO RIP-OFF ETHAN ALLEN AD
The City of Columbia’s new “Famously Hot” marketing campaign is not only a dud, but it’s a rip-off as well.
The Palmetto Scoop has learned that the 30-second advertisement released last week by the Columbia Metropolitan Convention & Visitors Bureau was almost entirely stolen from a spot released by the national home furnishing chain Ethan Allen earlier this year.
[View the "Famously Hot" ad and then view the Ethan Allen ad, or watch the video above.]
The “Famously Hot” spot was produced by The Ad Company, a Columbia-based public relations firm. A Columbia tourism official confirmed that the “Famously Hot” ad was part of the unitemized $75,000 in taxpayer funds paid to ADCO. They were unable to say for certain how much of the budget went to production, promotion and placement of the advertisement.
Ironically, the company brags about the ad on their blog. “You know you’ve arrived when your work is the subject of an editorial cartoon,” they write, referencing a drawing by The State’s editorial cartoonist Robert Ariail.
We’ll see if they’re still bragging when taxpayers discover that thousands of their hard-earned dollars went to copy someone else’s advertisement. And if that isn’t bad enough, wait until the intellectual property rights lawyers at Ethan Allen find out.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 1:09 pm and is filed under Around the state. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
We could do that spot [a joke] for 10k or less easy as could many of our friends such as RQA, et cetera, and we wonder… ok no we are just mad lets be honest…
While I’m not so “hot” on the ad, I find it difficult to make an intellectual property case for Ethan Allen- This is definitely a technique that has been utilized in advertising before.
Yeah, it is a little lame, they probably spent 10 k on the ad and took the other 65 k to the beach and are sipping daquiris now- and to make it worse, its probably not even a SC beach.
Scott — To their credit, they at least used a South Carolina company this time. But even $10k (I’m almost certain it was more) to pay someone to steal an is absurd.
They could have just gone to the J School at USC and made that a class project for AD Campaigns and gotten a better commercial and slogan than that. Disappointing.
Isn’t private enterprise shaking down government standard issue in the GOP playbook? It worked in Katrina and the war-
“Famously Hot” was also Columbia’s slogan when Sherman came through…
still prefer “where is Sherman now that we REALLY need him”.
Well, You gotta hand it to Ethan Allen, theirs repeated photos and kept hammering. Scott F. is right. Not a new or novel technique. I will hand it to the ADCO, they got the focus right. Columbia is HOT as anybody from the coast will tell you if they’ve spent time there in the summer.
I also know folks who could have produced that ad for 10K. Maybe as others said, some is for placement. Or maybe there were lots of client meetings! But seriously, there is a lot of work that usually has to be done. Hopefully, they tested the ad, made modifications and shot all original images, rather than use stills already in some person’s portfolio.
Don’t you rip off videos and put them on YouTube in order to drive hits to this site? You really aren’t one to throw around accusations of stealing. What a joke.
snead.. regardless of your claim the scoop didnt waste 10 large on stealing stuff. im sure they have stolen stuff but they dont do it with tax money. YOU miss the point like you do on your shit#y site.
I’m still looking for a point fogle, other than your panties get in a very tight wad when people spend money on anything other than sizemore security guards to protect you from the homosexuals that you’re so scared. But hey, you’re not gay, sister.
Ultimately, I think getting someone to come up with an effective slogan for the City of Columbia is kind of like asking someone to coach Carolina Football- You’ll be paid well, but ultimately your work will be unnapreciated and you will be run out of town, never to accomplish anything of note again. And I love both Columbia and the Gamecocks so much. But lets be honest, coming up with a way to fill our convention center is a difficult proposition. I mean, why fly to Columbia for a convention? And pay $600 to fly? You can fly to, well, anywhere with convention space for less and actually see something cool. Here, you get a big confederate flag at Maurices BBQ. And you can’t even get “those little bottles” at bars anymore, to quote a friend from California.
“It isn’t a TV spot or a commercial of any kind”- quoting their blog.
I heart you too, S.A.V.
First, I wasn’t really making a “claim”. The “TPS’s Video Collection” box on the right margin is full of stolen videos. So… that’s more like a fact. But since it ended in a question mark… nevermind, you probably can’t follow this anyway.
As Scott points out, this is not an ad. If you want to cry over wasted money, why not look at things that matter? For example, how is it possible that someone gets paid to sit on their ass all day and write about [Edited because Snead can't follow rules] like this? Seriously. Because I need that job.
The Scoop’s editor would be perfect for state or federal government. He already has the “sitting” and “wasting time” parts down, now he just needs to figure out how to look busy.
snead I see what you saying about the vod pod box exept the part where it says I collect with vodpod, meaning a colection, meaning not claiming to have made those vids or owned those vids. get a life and stop spamming other’s blogs you vaj.
Right. I’m sure CNN, MSNBC, NBC, FOX News, etc. love the fact that their product is being branded with a website and given away for free. I’m sure that works right into their plan to increase revenue. It’s not even close to stealing. Right.
snead, since your a communist you prob dont understand the fair use doctrine. http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html. even usc teaches that
Genius, you’re reaching. I’d love to hear where ripping off a video and slapping a plug for a revenue-producing website falls under fair use. Please educate me.
It seems as though this discussion has taken a different turn but I would just like to say that in no way, shape, or form was this an informed post. I don’t know where you got your information but it is false. Here is the truth:
I know for a fact that the famously hot movie was put together in less than one day for a presentation to the CVBB by an intern at ADCO, never was it meant to be plastered everywhere and never was it meant to be seen as an advertisement or commercial. It was merely a unique way of introducing a new logo. I know all of this because that intern is a friend of mine.
Hope this clears things up a bit…
Putri, facts don’t fly around here. Only [edited, once again, for vulgarity] can land and takeoff at this hub.