Did Chevy Steal Creative Concept from Popular Blog?

Have you seen Chevy's new "Then & Now: 100 Years of Chevrolet" commercial? Set to the comforting vocals of Ray Charles belting out "America the Beautiful," the ad is quite creative, elicits a heavy wave of nostalgia and is all-American. And its concept might have "borrowed" from the popular blog Dear Photograph.

The blog popularized the "picture in a picture" concept starting in May but is not mentioned anywhere in the ad. Now, Chevy does not use any of the blog's content in the piece, but the concept is note-for-note, says Mashable.

Taylor Jones, Dear Photograph's founder and operator, told Mashable:

When you look at it, there appears to be a lot of creative similarity, so I was hoping they would a least acknowledge that they were inspired by my site. I didn’t invent the technique of taking a picture of a picture — but I did popularize it by creating a unique site that brings together the physical technique with deeply emotional reflections that are expressed as captions. My site receives submissions from around the world and has been seen by more than 10 million visitors [since launch].

Comments on the commercial's YouTube page note the creative similarities between the video and the blog and remind Chevy to properly credit the ad.

Anovakowich wrote, "Cool! I loved it the first time I saw it on DEAR PHOTOGRAPH. Nice. Really should have something like 'inspired by....' Credit clearly should be given."

Another user, akapunishment, commented, "Popularized by 'Dear Photograph' ... maybe not created by 'Dear Photograph' but, definitely played up because of the popularity of 'Dear Photograph' ... guess the guys in the advertising department just couldn't come up with an original idea of their own. And yes, they ripped off 'Dear Photograph' because it's so well known."

Alchemysnap posted, "So you steal this idea from Dear Photograph and not give credit. Pretty disappointing behavior, Chevy."

Perhaps Chevy needed a little Don Draper "Mad Men" action to help bone up their advertising chops to produce the company's centennial.