UPS Ad: Inspiration or Infringement?

Got wind of this story via our good friend and artist Ruben Verdu.

It seems another ad agency, Ogilvy & Mather located in Jakarta, has taken the work of NY sculptor Ryan Johnson and used it to promote not just themselves, but the shipping company UPS. The website, Co.Design, has their take:

Now, you might still think that there’s no way a bunch of ad hacks from Jakarta could have seen the work of a relatively obscure artist in New York. But Johnson’s work has been extremely prominent on sites such as DesignBoom and Ffffound (which in particular, as any designer will tell you, has become a first-reference for creatives looking for “inspiration”).

If you take a look at both images, there’s such an obvious similarity that the UPS sculpture ads seem derivative works of Johnson’s sculptures. What do you think? I’m not so sure that an apology from Ogilvy would be enough. According to Co.Design, both UPS and Ogilvy have commented on this coincidence (as they call it). Both deny any wrongdoing.