This Cathay Pacific video is really, really similar to a 2017 Droga5 film for Christie's

A few little birdies have alerted Ad Nut that Hong Kong adland is all atwitter about the undeniable similarity of a new video posted by Cathay Pacific (and created by Publicis Hong Kong) and a film that Droga5 made for the auction house Christie's in 2017.

The former promotes the airline's latest in-flight entertainment system. The latter promoted the auction of a painting by Leonardo da Vinci. The Droga5 film won Gold at Cannes Lions, among other awards, and the painting sold for US$450.3 million. Both films feature people getting emotional straight to camera against a black background with a backing track of classical music.

Ad Nut makes no assertions about whether this is an accidental or deliberate act of copying, but simply presents the work below for you to judge.

Cathay Pacific confirmed that Publicis created the video, and provided the following statement:

The objective of the ‘Feel More’ campaign was to let our customers know that we now offer 4x more inflight entertainment including live sports and box sets. The campaign leveraged a truth, that as an airline we understand, that for whatever reason our emotions are heightened inflight. The creative aims to bring this truth to life by dramatising the emotions felt by our customers after watching our now more powerful range of entertainment. Any similarity with another campaign is totally accidental and unintended.

Ad Nut's human colleagues at Campaign Asia-Pacific have reached out Publicis Groupe Hong Kong for comment.

Cathay Pacific:

'The Last da Vinci', by Droga5 for Christie's:

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