At the heart of the controversy is Ogilvy & Mather Singapore's Guinness
Draught campaign 'What's on your mind', which won gold and silver Lions at last month's Cannes Festival, making O&M and Singapore the most awarded agency in Asia and Asian market for the second year in a
row.
But victory celebrations were short-lived. O&M now finds itself in the
unenviable position of fending off accusations that it won with a scam
campaign. O&M's troubles appear to be a repeat of last year's Lowe
Lintas Sydney's Taronga Zoo scam - that it didn't get client approval to
run the ad.
O&M initially credited the Guinness Draught print and poster campaign to
Asia Pacific Breweries (APB), when in fact it was for Gaelic Inns, which
runs two pubs in Singapore. The ads were written to a brief from United
Stout Marketing (USM), APB's joint-venture company.
However, USM never ran the ads because of a global realignment which saw O&M lose the Asia-Pacific account to Saatchi & Saatchi in Janaury.
To make matters worse, the agency approached Gaelic Inn with the ads,
and asked the pub owners to run it. Which they apparently did.
It's this sequence of events which has caused an uproar in creative
circles, with creative chiefs crying foul. Some have gone as far as to
describe it as a repeat of the Taronga Zoo fiasco last year in which the
Lowe Lintas ad won a Silver Lion but was disqualified by Cannes
officials when it was revealed that the client wasn't even aware of the
work.
However, O&M is steadfastly denying the scam allegation.
Andy Greenaway, O&M executive creative director, describes the drama
that has unfolded as unfortunate, but explainable.
He puts the registration of the Guinness ads under APB down to a
clerical error, and argues that nothing could have been gained, even if
it had been intentional.
The industry remains sceptical and is unconvinced by O&M's
explanation.
One source commented that being proactive with a client is one thing but
producing an ad for one client then trying to flog the campaign off to
someone else is another matter altogether.
Bates Asia president, Jeffrey Yu, who had a heated exchange with O&M's
global creative chief Neil French over the issue last year, says:
"Whatever the mistake, we have this incident and it's an embarrassment
to the Asian advertising industry. It cannot be taken lightly because
it's an issue that affects the industry's future and credibility."
Greenaway, who was on the Cannes print and poster judging panel this
year, agrees that Asia has a reputation for producing scam ads.
However, he doesn't believe the problem is as widespread as some say it is. "What happens in Asia is nothing compared with what happens in
Brazil.
"There's one agency over there that in the months leading up to Cannes
stops working on client campaigns altogether so that it can focus solely
on producing scam ads, which are entered into Cannes."
He also argued that ad agencies in Asia-Pacific have made a big effort
in recent times to stamp out unethical practices, including scam
ads."What happened to Marc Schattner last year, I think had an effect,"
he says in reference to the creative director at the centre of the
Taronga Zoo controversy, who was dismissed.
Greenaway stresses: "The test of whether something is a scam ad comes down to whether the client paid to run the advertising."
In O&M's case, the media bill for the Guinness ads were paid for - but
not by the company listed as the client.
Should the agency be penalised or should it be given the benefit of the
doubt?
There aren't any easy answers, but Greenaway insists that O&M Singapore is being unfairly singled out by people who are jealous of its recent successes.
The issue is troubling but it's a difficult one to resolve. The degree
of difficulty is reflected by the fact that the industry is unable to
agree on an accepted definition of what makes a scam ad. It seems there are more versions that anyone cares to count.
