A Russian TV spot for a brand of cologne may look a little familiar to anyone who has seen the intro cinematic for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.
Above, we see the awesome intro movie for Wrath of the Lich King, the second expansion to World of Warcraft. In it, the Lich King Arthas eventually meanders his way to a bleak, icy promontory, and sweeps the snow from the ice to find something buried beneath the frozen wastes. He strikes the ice with his sword, and the powerful frost wyrm Sindragosa breaks through from her frozen prison.
Below, we see a commercial for Glacier Ice, a Russian brand of cologne made by Oriflame, starring Olympic gold medalist figure skater Evgeni Plushenko. In it, Plushenko is standing on a bleak, icy promontory, sweeps the snow from the ice to find something buried beneath the frozen wastes, strikes the ice with his figure skates and gaily triple-axels his way around the scene as the bottle of Glacier Ice cologne breaks through from its frozen prison.
Allow me to speak for all involved when I say, “huh?”
The similarities are immediately obvious, and it’s obvious that more than one person involved with the creation of this Wrath of the Figure Skater King clip almost certainly plays WoW. On the assumption that it was a not-so-subtle little homage to the game (instead of a misguided attempt at getting WoW players to buy cologne), have they really done anything wrong? No, seriously, I actually don’t know – is this in any way sketchy, or just… odd?
