On the radio this morning an otherwise unmemorable ad from Nissan shamelessly ripped off Dire Straits “Money for Nothing”. The idea is that they don’t want to pay the royalties for using an excerpt from the original song, so they pay a composer to do a soundalike which is close enough to leave the listener in no doubt of the song being ripped off, but different enough to keep the lawyers at bay. Nissan are not the only offenders – it seems like every other ad is a soundalike these days.

Are they really selling cars with these tactics? I find it hard to believe. Think of the truly great ads over the years. We’ve had the big budget epics from the likes of British Airways that wow you visually.

We’ve had the viral campaigns, like T Mobile’s recent offering

And then we’ve had the ones that license old classic tunes and introduce them to a new generation

Now think of a classic ad with a soundalike soundtrack. I certainly can’t.

It’s commonly held that any ad that gets your attention is a success, even if it grabs the listener by annoying them. I’m not sure about the truth of this assertion, as I still avoid certain products for no other reason than being irritated by ads for the product. And soundalikes irritate me most of all. If I want to hear dodgy ripoffs of classic songs, I’ll go ride in an elevator for an hour, thanks very much.

There are so many talented musicians and filmmakers with great original ideas – we don’t need Saatchi and Saatchi to come up with a killer ad campaign.