CAROUSEL COPYCAT FOR CSI

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then Stink/Smuggler director Adam Berg and TribalDDB Amsterdam should consider themselves flattered to death. Launching the season trailer for the latest CSI outing, American TV station CBS has, shall we say, been influenced quite heavily by the Grand Prix-winning Carousel spot for Philips.

The video, which is not currently available on the CBS site for European visitors, is a cut and paste pastiche of the hospital shoot-em-up that won international acclaim for its innovative use of a single tracking shot to create an eye-opening interactive narrative loop. Chatter about the film appeared in the comments section on YouTube below a copy of the original Philips piece uploaded by user SpotBacchus.

At the beginning of last week ronineditor posted the following comment on the video hosting site: "CSI is about to shamelessly rip this off verbatim on their launch show. Check out their website, then go to the CSI show page, then their promo for a preview." The following day superfoodgourmet stoked the fire by adding "Just saw the rip off and thought "this is a total and complete rip-off of that Philips commercial!" - googled it, and here I am. Totally the same. I hope it's the same director and/or that they acknowledge where they got it from!" [sic]

While we can confirm that the CSI video is definitely not the work of Berg, Stink, Smuggler or TribalDDB Amsterdam, we've yet to find out who CBS recruited to recreate the original. But for Neil Dawson, ECD on the Philips account at DDB, the imitation reflects the quality of the original: "It's a consistent aim of ours to produce work with 'Talkvalue'. Carousel has done pretty well in that regard already. The CSI film takes that to a whole new level. It's extremely flattering but it's also shows the power of creativity in terms of getting bang for your buck. To quote Bill Bernbach - Creativity can make one ad do the work of ten."

shots.net also contacted Smuggler partner and executive producer, Patrick Milling Smith, who had the following to say: "Maybe everyone should be flattered that one of the USA's shows with the highest ratings needs to rip them off. It also shows that with every Hollywood toy and unlimited money there is no substitute for talent and craft. The team behind CSI could not get anywhere close to what Adam and Stink Digital pulled off. That should be quite satisfying and very telling."

Check out the two videos below and decide for yourself.