Pretty obvious. But hey, they are taking Steve Jobs advise:

“good artist copy. Great artist steal” So far they are only good :).

Innovation is great, but once in a while a new idea comes up and does great that it becomes a standard. Many similar ads have shown up, most I liked was Ruby ones

“Just for the record, I am talking about Ruby on Rails not the dancing lady! ;)” LooooL

الخمطة بربع

HILARIOUS!!

nxman:
Not only they are expensive, but they have a misleading pricing policy too ..

http://www.scootinger.net/2007/02/20/im-a-pc-and-im-a-mac-circa-1996/

Interesting findings, Looks like u’ve located the main source .. But let’s say that Apple took the idea from that magazine article, they still modified and improved it significantly, but in fasttelco’s case only the clothing is different ..

@Shwing:
there’s an uneven split between ppl about whether it’s a copy or not, and most of the ppl who saw both ads agree that it’s a copy .. There might be a chance that it’s not a copy if both ads were used at the same time, but the timing and fasttelco’s history ( the similar case with the logo mentioned in the post ) is what makes us almost 100% sure that it’s a copy ..

@Very.Q8ya:
Some ppl say it’s because the marketing department and ad agencies are not creative enough, and some might argue that apple’s ad was soooo goood that it’s ok for ppl to copy it :/ !

@Morbid Curiosity:
“rather than violating my senses with their really bad advertising” you got that right !!
But I still wish that they can create ads inspired by the big boys rather than copying them ..

Thank you for your comments.
I have so far agreed with the group that saw the ad as a copy. However, and as I mentioned earlier, I do not think it is a poor one. I am sure you would agree that as critics we should dig a little deeper into the components of the ad. Creating a “BUZZ” is one of, actually, the most important part of any advertisement. MAC’s ad made me laugh, however it did not create a BUZZ. (That’s why we call it Mac vs. PC ad, it doesn’t have a name). On the Other hand Fasttelco’s ad made me laugh and it also created a BUZZ, ” خمطة بربع”, This is what people will remember. This is the BUZZ. I definitely give credit to whoever dug deep into the culture and came up it. Additionally, making a funny video is not very hard, but creating a still photo that triggers emotions is a bit more difficult.
Another example of a BUZZ is NBK’s Yabeela, however, it did not trigger any emotions and two years down the road I find it irritating.
” خمطة بربع ” will always make me laugh, with or without Fasttelco!

I agree that we should give them credit for using the informal funny phrase “الخمطة بربع” in an ad like that, it made it funny and will make ppl remember it .. we are starting to notice this trend in a lot of ads ( it might have started with NBK’s ‘Yabeela’ ads), using informal Kuwaiti slang language in the ads make the company connect better with the demographic they are targeting ..