Apple’s Eminem Spot Didn’t Think Different Enough From Shoe Ad

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Apple Computer Inc.’s ultra-hip iPod commercials, the ones featuring black silhouettes dancing against colored backgrounds, have launched the careers of Indie rock bands Jet (iPod’s first commercial) and The Gorillaz (the iPod Shuffle ads). The campaigns, created by the Marina del Rey office of TBWA/Chiat/Day, have become a part of pop culture, plastering billboards and buses all over the world.


But the local ad shop seems to have stumbled with its latest iPod ad, which features rapper Eminem. The spot looks similar to a three-year old ad for Lugz footwear, created by New York advertising firm Avrett Free Ginsberg. Both ads have the same red, orange and yellow background and feature black silhouettes jumping through an urban scene with hip-hop music.


TBWA/Chiat/Day, a division of Omnicom Group, issued a statement saying, “We do not plagiarize, borrow, or steal (ideas), and have a strict policy of not accepting third-party ideas in our creative process.”


The agency said that any similarities between the ads were “regrettable,” and deferred questions to Apple, which declined to comment. The blogosphere has been buzzing about the ad, especially because it’s for a company whose motto is “Think different.”


Lugz is considering legal action, The New York Times reported. As one ad-blogger pointed out on the site ipodnn.com, “Lugz should take the extra publicity and have fun.”



Computer Lagger


Californians like to think of themselves as impossibly high-tech, cutting edge, the cradle of innovation. Yet the state ranks 13th in the nation in computer ownership and Internet access behind New Hampshire, Utah, Colorado and Washington, according to a survey by the U.S. Census Bureau.


“You’d think we would rank higher,” reasoned Jack Kyser, chief economist of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.


But people tend to forget the agricultural Central Valley, Kyser said, and the northern portion of the state above the Bay Area, which has a “pretty narrow economy,” based on tourism and logging.


“It’s a good chunk of the state,” he said. “People don’t really quite understand California, even people who live here. It’s a whole bunch of micro-economies and they each dance to their own drummer.”



Less-Than-Physical Checks


California Bank & Trust has a new check deposit program for its business customers: check-scanning.


Called the Remote Deposit Program, it allows customers to scan a check from their office location and send the image electronically for deposit. Funds are available the next business day. That eliminates the two-to-three-day float of mailing checks in for deposit.


“It makes us competitive with Bank of America and Wells Fargo because we put the branch in our customer’s office,” said John Russell, senior vice president and manager of corporate services for San Diego-based CB & T;, a division of Salt Lake City-based Zions Bancorp. (CB & T; has 72 locations in L.A. County.)


The electronic image of the check is sent to a central server, where it is screened and transmitted to a printing center near the payee bank. The bank’s security software screens images of the check, and fraud policies remain the same.


So far, the program is only available to business customers, who must purchase the scanning machine from the bank. The scanners are available in a low-speed $750-version and up to a high-speed $3,000 machine.


Staff Reporter Hilary Potkewitz can be reached at (323) 549-5225 ext. 226, or by e-mail at

[email protected]

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