Our film is inspired by original Mr India: FCB’s John Thangaraj

Days after a former creative director from content company Pocket Aces alleged uncanny similarities between a ‘Mr India’ ad created by FCB Ulka for Google and a reel posted by him on his Instagram account in June 2023, John Thangaraj, Group Chief Strategy Officer, at FCB Group India has finally responded.

Replying to a post put up by Abhinav Krishna on his LinkedIn account, Thangaraj wrote that their film is inspired by a scene from the original film Mr. India, and if at all there is any similarities in the two works, it is wholly coincidental.

"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)," wrote Thangaraj.

He further said, "Having only seen 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."

Earlier making the allegations, LinkedIn, 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 also posted a video on X comparing both pieces

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

The Google India ad, starring actor Anil Kapoor, shows him in his Mr. India avatar promoting the Pixel 8 smartphone.