Copy, Copy, Copy: How to Do Smarter Marketing by Using Other People's Ideas

1 IN PRAISE OF COPYING Copying, originality, invention, innovation and the King of Rock ‘n' Roll

WELCOME TO ELVISLAND

Few events on the planet capture our mixed-up and confused feelings about copying better than the annual Elvies festival, held each October in an unprepossessing purpose-built holiday resort outside the seaside town of Porthcawl in wet and windy south Wales. The Elvies is the world's largest such gathering devoted to His Presleyness (it has a daily attendance only slightly lower than the much cooler and well-funded Burning Man Festival). Over the course of one autumnal weekend, out where the brown-grey waves of the Bristol Channel meet the post-industrial landscape of the Welsh coast, more than 100 acts strut their stuff – shake their hips and curl their lips – and present their impersonations of the one and only – The King.

In 2012 the Elvies achieved something particularly special: it witnessed the largest ever recorded gathering of Elvis impersonators doing their snake-hipped best, rather rowdily singing along to ‘Hound Dog' (smashing the record held by a Nike US sales conference some two years previously).

Elvies organizer Peter Phillips noted, ‘We had all sorts of different Elvises aged from three to 80 and from the UK, Ireland, Germany, Malta and even Brazil. They were wearing all manner of Elvis costumes from gold lamé jackets, to leather jump suits and ...