Knock it Off Nigel

Piracy funds drug dealers and Al Qaeda!

That's been the typical anti-piracy ad in the UK over the last 20 years. So it make a change to see something else that while not perfect certainly seems to be part of a better strategy.

Knock off Nigel.

See, the problem with telling everyone piracy funds criminals is that most people get them off their mate Terry at the market. They don't see Terry as having any connection whatsoever to organised crime.

The "pirate dvd's have rubbish picture quality" ads in cinema's are useful as they remind you what you could be missing out on.

However, despite some flaws (It could be funnier, wittier, and make more out of the song) the idea of Knock off Nigel is by far the best anti piracy ad I can remember.

Making people who buy copied DVD's out to be cheap scroungers is a bold step really considering how many people do it. But its done just well enough to get people talking; that if your mate buys copied DVD's you might just be tempted to call him a Knock off Nigel for a laugh. It slowly gets the message out there and could actually make some difference in an area that is extremely hard to crack.

This is also a chance to show the excellent parody of the old style piracy ads from The IT Crowd:

Sony Sony Sony

Why are you killing the Playstation 3?
Why are you completely screwing over the customer for short term cost cutting because you raised costs so much to try and win the DVD format battle?

I know this isnt an ad comment, but it just completely tarnishes the whole image of Sony; at a time they REALLY need to improve it.

All the good work done by agencies to create good ads is being blown to pieces by a constant stream of stupid moves and bad PR.

Someone at the top of Sony has to start looking into what is going on at SCEJ (Sony Computer Entertainment). What was saving the brand looks like it could end up destroying it; and Sony has so much history and still so much potential... lets hope they dont let it.