SINGAPORE: Ogilvy & Mather Singapore's Cannes entry of a Guinness
Draught campaign has been ruled legitimate by the festival's
organisers.
The ruling clears the way for O&M to keep the gold lion it won in the
press and poster category for the "What's on your mind", which had been
submitted under Asia Pacific Breweries name, although Gaelic Inns, which
has two Irish pubs in Singapore, paid for media costs and the agency
picked up the production tab. This coupled with the fact O&M had
approached Gaelic Inns with the creative work has led some Singapore ad
agencies to threaten to boycott the Creative Circle Awards (CCA) in
protest as O&M executive creative director, Andy Greenaway, is the CCA
chairman.
But Cannes organisers argued that the campaign was not a scam because
Gaelic Inns paid for the media and that the error in O&M's submission
had no impact on the judging. The only outstanding issue with Cannes
organisers is whether the award should be in the print and poster retail
category rather than more prestigious alcoholic beverages.
In an earlier interview with media, Greenaway pinned the situation on a
clerical error, which occurred because O&M had initially created the
campaign for APB's joint venture company United Stout Marketing. The
account was then moved to Saatchi & Saatchi in a global realignment
earlier this year. O&M said that when it submitted entries to Cannes, it
referred to the client on the original job number.
Tim Isaac, O&M regional vice-president, said the agency had approached
Gaelic Inns at the behest of Keith Harris, general manager business
development at APB. Gaelic Inns is a franchisee of The Irish Pub
Company, an operating unit of Guinness.
Isaac said the allegations that the Guinness campaign was a scam ad had
caused "extreme damage" to his agency.
He said rival ad agency bosses were playing up the issue in the press to
undermine O&M's credibility.
