FCB Group India clarifies the allegations of copying in Google's Mr. India Ad

John Thangaraj replied, "By way of introduction, I lead strategy for FCB here in India, and was personally involved in this project. Our film is inspired by a scene from the original Mr. India, which was released back in 1987.
I'm not sure if you've watched the original, but if you have, you'll recall a scene early on in the movie, where Arun (Anil Kapoor's character) is hard selling his room for rent to Seema (Sridevi's character). He does so as follows:
Madame, kya kamra hai.
Kamra ke aagey balcony
Balcony ke aagey garden
Aur garden ke aagey samundar.
This is what formed the basis of the film you're claiming we copied from you."

He further added, "Having only see screen shots of your animated short and not the video itself, I can't comment on the framing of our own film vis-a-vis yours.
What I can say however is that both FCB and Google adhere to the very highest standard of creative integrity and if there is at all, even the slightest similarity to your own work, that similarity is wholly coincidental.
While I realize it's easy to make accusations in the age of social media, I would encourage you to be a little more circumspect in doing so going forward.
Please do reach out to me directly in case you'd like to discuss this any further. "

 

Earlier in a LinkedIn post Krishna wrote, "Google India’s new Mr. India ad looks like a near-copy of an animated video I had released back in June. Mr. India ki tarah mera credit bhi gayab. In June 2023, I released an animated reel on Instagram called ‘The Worst House Ever Saw’. It’s a video about the first house that I had seen while house-hunting in Mumbai. A true story that I have been narrating to friends for many years. Except this year, I decided to make it an animated retelling and release it."

He also said that two ideas can be similar but having a frame-by-frame copy cannot be a coincidence. He wrote, " Now, you might say that two ideas can be similar. Sure, but even keeping that in mind, watching the Google ad is like watching a frame-by-frame recreation of my video. It flows exactly the same way that my story flows. The shot composition and storyboard are very similar. Even the expression the character makes as she tries to find the sea is the exact same! It doesn’t stop there. The final reveal, the final zoom-in to show the sea is done the same way."

 

Krishna additionally shared a video on platform X, drawing a comparison between the two artworks.

https://twitter.com/Kibitzer_01/status/1723971359624323344

The advertisement for Google India features actor Anil Kapoor reprising his role as Mr. India, endorsing the Pixel 8 smartphone.