Why invest time and money in developing your own ad campaign when you can steal someone else’s?

Staples and its advertising agency may be wondering just that as Ricart Ford, an Ohio auto dealer, has duplicated the current Staples’ TV spot, right down to the African-American supporting actor. (See both spots below. Warning: Both versions are potentially annoying.)

Ricart answers viewer complaints about the unoriginality of the spot on its Facebook page with a blanket defense: “From Fred’s earliest advertising days, Ricart has used humor and parody in its TV commercials.”

Parody, by definition, requires satire of the original work. However, rather than poking fun at the Staples’ concept, Ricart is simply leveraging the spot’s established awareness as well as riding the coattails of Staples’ national TV buy.

Parody or grand theft auto? What do you think?

P.S. Since this posting, YouTube has removed the Ricart commercial “due to a copyright claim by Staples, Inc.”