BBH charges Ogilvy with Barnado copy

<p>SINGAPORE: Bartle Bogle & Hegarty has charged that Ogilvy & </p><p>Mather's pro bono campaign for the Singapore National Council Against </p><p>Drug Abuse (NCADA) is similar to work its London office created for UK </p><p>welfare agency, Barnado, last year. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Both campaigns juxtapose the appalling living conditions drug addicts </p><p>endure with images of addicts when they were kids. Steve Elrick, </p><p>creative director at BBH, said: "The O&M campaign is not only similar, </p><p>it uses the same idea, same style and covers a similar topic to a BBH </p><p>campaign that ran not that long ago and generated publicity in </p><p>Singapore." </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>BBH's campaign caused a furore in the British parliament because one </p><p>execution featured a digitally-altered image of a baby, sitting on the </p><p>floor of a squat, shooting up heroin. It also made headlines in </p><p>Singapore when the daily tabloid The New Paper had the ad on its front </p><p>page. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>O&M executive creative director, Andy Greenaway, however, rejected the </p><p>charge. Instead, he issued a counter-charge, saying BBH had itself used </p><p>a creative idea similar to a 1970s anti-smoking ad created by Saatchi & </p><p>Saatchi London.Greenaway agreed that both campaigns used the same idea, </p><p>but insisted that the creative executions are very different. Any </p><p>similarities between the two campaigns, he said, are coin- cidental. He </p><p>insisted that O&M had no intention of taking ideas from BBH. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Greenaway believes the situation may have occurred because the campaigns </p><p>follow a similar strategy, and he pointed to numerous instances where </p><p>creatives in different countries have accidentally come up with the same </p><p>idea. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Creative directors in Singapore agencies have also remarked on the </p><p>similarities between the two campaigns. But Chris Kyme, FCB region-al </p><p>creative director, said: "However, knowing O&M here I very much doubt </p><p>they would rip something off." </p><p><BR><BR> </p>