Plagiarism Nation: The story of Israel’s copycat advertising industry

Ami Kaufman By Ami Kaufman November 14, 2010 | Edit
I think I’ll write a new book on how Israel became the number one copycat in the ad business

In 2009 a book called “Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle” hit the stores and was an immediate best-seller in the States and Europe. It told of the huge hi-tech industry in Israel, and the reasons behind its success.

The NYTimes Freakonomics section interviewed one of the authors of the book back then, and one of the questions went like this:

NYTimes: In the book, you explore a number of explanations for Israel’s overwhelming economic success, one of which is the famous Israeli chutzpah. What exactly is chutzpah and what role does it play in Israel’s business culture?
Dan Senor: Chutzpah is hard to define. Modern Hebrew borrowed the word from Yiddish, the all-but-vanished German-Slavic language. According to Yiddish scholar Leo Rosten, chutzpah is “gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible ‘guts,’ presumption, plus arrogance such as no other word and no other language can do justice to.”

I couldn’t agree more with author Dan Senor about chutzpah – but especially when it comes to Israeli ad agencies. If you press here, you’ll see a post I wrote over a year ago on how an Israeli cellphone company, Cellcom, copies an amazing video of a Japanese rock band. And if you press here, you’ll see a post I wrote last November about an Israeli bank ad that is exactly like an American bank ad.

But I think today I saw the best plagiarism ever. Just last night I watched this commerical for the Israeli fashion chain called Castro, and me and my wife were seriously impressed with it. “Wow,” we said, “cool ad!”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyCOji5PSyM&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

And then today, a work colleague showed me this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUFnH7KYMFE&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

All I want to do, is meet the art director, the genius who offered this ad to Castro, and say to him: “Dude, you’ve just redefined chutzpah”.

Ami Kaufman

Ami Kaufman was chief night editor for Haaretz, for the prominent Israeli financial daily Calcalist, and correspondent on Israeli affairs for 93.6 RAM FM, a joint Palestinian-Israel radio station. His interest in food and cooking led to culinary studies at the "Israeli CIA" (Tadmor, Herzliya) and a brief stint in the restaurant business. Born in Tel Aviv, Ami lives in Bat Yam with his wife and two daughters. In his spare time he blogs at Half & Half.