We’ve all had that moment when we see a commercial for a new product and think, “Hey, I had that idea first.” Usually you just have to shrug it off and reconcile yourself to the fact that you’re not the first person ever to have that thought before. That’s not sitting well over on Reddit, where users are claiming there’s evidence that Axe ripped off a new commercial for shower gel word for word from a redditor’s post.
Axe debuted a new ad campaign recently called “Shower Thoughts,” with the first installment featuring this specific way of viewing the world: “If you’re criticized for being short, they’re really just saying the worst thing about you is that there isn’t more of you.”
Cut to basketball legend Muggsy Bogues, who standouts at 5’3”, dominating other players on the court.
That’s strange, said Reddit users (as earlier reported by Digiday), because there’s an entire subreddit devoted to shower thoughts, called /r/Showerthoughts.
In fact, one user in particular posted what seems to be almost the exact same shower thought that Axe just had back in August, with the post, “When you’re criticised for being short, they’re really just saying the worst thing about you is that there isn’t more of you.”
Other users noticed this, and posted Axe’s ad to the subreddit, saying “Axe is jacking our shower thoughts and not giving credit. Literally word for word.”
While some users are outraged, demanding that Axe and its advertising company admit that the idea was ripped off, other people don’t seem so convinced. Heck, has there ever been a totally original idea ever in human existence? Is someone thinking that exact same sentence somewhere else in the world right now? We can’t know.
The user who posted that shower thought back in August is still pretty convinced that Axe copied his stuff.
“I did a quick google search of the exact wording I used excluding all results after my post and it returned nothing to do with what I posted,” the user wrote. “Given the number of words which exist in the english language and the number strung together in that post I’d be highly surprised if they were ever put together in that combination ever before in the history of mankind. Then again, I could be wrong, I don’t know. But yeah as far as I can see the ‘exact wording’ is my idea.”
Unilever, Axe’s parent company, didn’t respond to Digiday’s request for comment. We reached out to the company as well and will update this post if we hear back.
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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