David Hauser, co-founder/CTO of Massachusetts-based firm Grasshopper, which offers virtual phone services for entrepreneurs and small businesses, is crying foul over Ogilvy's new AmEx spot that touts the power of entrepreneurship.

On his MINDDrift blog, Hauser points out that not only has Grasshopper's piano-driven animated video been out months before Ogilvy's piano-driven narrated work, but that Google Analytics showed the mega-agency was trolling the Grasshopper campaign site multiple times before releasing the AmEx ditty.

Some of the more interesting excerpts from Hauser's textual rant include:

"It bothers me that a very large ad agency would 'borrow' from not one entrepreneurial company (Grasshopper) but also an independent communications professional we hired to produce a video. But what bothers me more is that the message is being used for direct commercial gain by AmEx to promote another venture of theirs, OPEN Forum.

...This video was never created so that we could monopolize the message, 'entrepreneurs can change the world,' but there are certainly lots of ways to get this message across without replicating someone else's campaign (especially if you have the resources of Ogilvy & Mather). After all, we were open to sharing the video. In fact, we even released it under the Creative Commons license so anyone could download it, show it at conferences, company meetings or anything else. What's more, we removed our branding almost entirely so that people could just use the video to motivate people. Instead, a very large ad agency decided it would be easier to just 'borrow' the feel of our messaging, and not even engage in a partnership that would truly help entrepreneurs (there are definitely ways to do this, American Express)."

Hmm, well besides the similarities in music, messaging and overall tone, we can't figure out why Hauser would be so upset.

Update: A source within Ogilvy tells us their piece was produced in early spring, possibly March.

Update 2: An Oglivy representative confirms that the video was produced in March, noting, "We
couldn't say that if Amex wasn't ok with that. This kind of work takes a long time to go through the pipeline."

Regarding Ogilvy employees allegedly visiting the Grasshopper site, the rep. states that those visits came from the UK and Hong Kong (we're not sure how they know that; would not elaborate); the ad was produced by Ogilvy New York. Furthermore, we hear there was a large marketing push by Grasshopper whereby chocolate grasshoppers were sent to various outlets, creating a stir about the campaign. That could be how the UK/Hong Kong folks arrived (in May, btw, according to Ogilvy).

And then there's Girl Effect.

Via

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