Let me describe an ad film to you.
A young girl.
Her digital data is being auctioned.
Her medical history, search data, location data, her contacts, everything is being auctioned.
A group of buyers bids for the data excitedly even as the auctioneer does his job with the usual theatrical flair.
The point being made is all about online data privacy and how to safeguard it.
Here is that ad.
This ad is from November 2020.
Did you think I was talking about the brand new Apple iPhone ad?
This Apple ad is from May 2022.
The Apple ad is by the brand’s regular agency, TBWA\Media Arts Lab.
The other ad is by the Indian agency 21N78E Creative Labs, made for the ‘Reclaim Your Privacy’ campaign supported by the impact investment firm, Omidyar Network India.
I how Apple’s privacy-related messaging has evolved since they started selling privacy as a product/highlight in 2019.
But the similarities between the two ads are way too uncanny to ignore or categorize under mere coincidence.
That both ads are using a dramatized version of a data auction.
That both ads frame it as an auction of specific data belonging to one individual (while the actual data auction is about data belonging to millions of people together).
That such an auction is about the data belonging to one young girl, clearly named (Kiran, Ellie).
That both allude not just to any kind of data but also medical data in specific – Ellie’s drug store purchases vs. Kiran’s medical history.
That both ads ask you to, as a call to action, turn off ad tracking specifically – the Apple ad shows this as part of the iPhone’s settings while the Indian ad shows this as a generic, phone brand-agnostic call to action, understandably.
The Indian ad won a Gold at the Campaign India Digital Crest Awards 2021, under the online marketing category.
And a few more awards in 2021!
It may not make much sense to go more into the aesthetics of both ads. The Apple ad is, no doubt, far sharper, polished, and well produced. It’s Apple, after all. Plus, it’s selling a product, so the dramatic flourish is perfectly appropriate.
In comparison, the Indian Reclaim Your Privacy ad seems longer and more verbose. But remember: this ad is not selling you a product, but a concept. So, its extended emphasis on the specifics of the data being sold is justified.
The ads are meant for vastly different audiences and different goals.
But it’s clear that the Indian ad film was the first to use a dramatized and exaggerated version of a data auction, one that was isolated to the data of one individual (as against the norm in such data auctions – this is the very essence of the creative device utilized in both ads), to highlight the significance of privacy in the way we use digital devices.
What remains unclear, and cannot be ascertained by anyone outside of TBWA\Media Arts Lab is if this was plagiarism. Considering Apple’s and TBWA\Media Arts Lab’s legacy of advertising, it may be more reasonable to conclude this as a terribly unfortunate coincidence. Two different people, in two different parts of the world, can land on the same creative device while deliberating over the same brief. This does happen, of course.
So what can 21N78E Creative Labs, the Indian agency do? I don’t see anything meaningful that they can do.
I feel that they should definitely reach out to both Apple’s marketing team and TBWA\Media Arts Lab and present their case. They do have an excellent case.
On my part, all I can do is talk about the predecessor in the context of the new Apple ad and hope more people get to know about the Indian ad. That includes this post.