Posted: February-14-2010 at 5:27am | IP Logged	Tweet

Both ads begin with a man rising from bed and sleepwalking outdoors, in the Coke ad through the wilds of Africa, in the Israeli ad the Negev Desert.

Both ads cut at the same point to the inside of a refrigerator, with the American ad showing bottles of Coke and the Israeli ad, bottles of Yotvata dairy drinks.

Both ads then cut, again at the same point, to the sleepwalkers taking a sip from the bottles and grinning in satisfaction, and then to the companies’ logo.

What’s more, both ads use an excerpt from the same piece of music, Ravel’s “Bolero.”

Copying in the advertising industry is not uncommon, said Dr. Yaron Timmor, head of the marketing communications program at the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel. But for a company with the stature of Coca-Cola to copy an Israeli ad would be “puzzling and strange,” he told the Jerusalem Post.

The defense against accusations of copyright infringement is to assert that the original was not known to the accused, the Post reported. But in this case, using the same music as the earlier ad weakens that defense.

(Newsmax.com)