October 15, 2001
SAN DIEGO— Marketing executives at computer maker Gateway dismiss accusations that their new campaign featuring a talking Holstein cow is “totally different” from a nearly identical campaign for Real California Cheese. Both campaigns center around special-effects-aided talking cows but according to a Gateway spokesperson, the two have little in common and will certainly not confuse viewers in any way

“We see no similarities at all,” stated Marie Higginbothom, Gateway Marketing V.P. “The California Cheese spots have several talking cows and don’t have any humans in them. Our spots have only one talking cow, which interacts with Ted Waitt, our CEO. See the difference? Two completely different ideas,” she added.

But according to sources at the California Cheese comission's agency, Deutsch/LA, Gateway has blatantly ripped them off. “Our talking cows campaign as been on the air for a year. Surely whoever came up with their campaign has seen ours. We think they even used the same fucking cow,” said a source who did not want to be identified.

Adweek’s ad critic Barbara Lippert, who gave the Gateway campaign a sterling review, said she had not as of yet seen the California Cheese spots, but had she done so she might not have been so complimentary of the Gateway campaign “I don’t watch much TV,” she said, commenting, “And besides, I have Tivo, so I just skip all the commercials anyway."

The agency involved in executing the Gateway spots claim they had no knowledge whatsoever about the California Cheese campaign. But according to production assistant, Todd Mandevin, “The first day of shooting I said to the creative director, ‘Hey, these are like those Cheese spots,’ and the guy just went off. He told me to mind my own fucking business and get some doughnuts or something,” said Mandevin. “After that I just kept my mouth shut.”

While neither company has any legal action planned, a spokesman from the Cheese commission has expressed his concern with the remarkably similar concept, stating, “If I ever see those fuckers who stole our idea, so help me I’ll throttle them.”
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