The brands they hurt the most are the ones most of us work for -- the agencies. Because once the client PR guys have put out the fires with irate consumers (simply by saying this ad was fake and we had nothing to do with it), the real damage is to our credibility as individuals and as an industry. Until our "creative leaders" (you know, the guys who gave the fake Kia ad a Silver Lion and have yet to correct their mistake) have to wake up to this, we will continue to lose value in the eyes of the people who pay our salaries.
Any updates on that, by the way? I haven't heard anything about the award being withdrawn.
Cannes is one of the business world's great boondoggles, and from experience I can say it's a very pleasant one. As long as Sir Martin and his peers are willing to pony up the pounds to keep it running, that's great. But what isn't great is when scam work like the Kia ad, or the above, which is damaging on any number of levels, is lauded primarily for its ability to offend, and pushes out work done on behalf of real clients that took not only ingenuity to create but courage to sell. Unfortunately that situation will not change unless people start voting with their wallets, which is why I suggested those who lost out to the Kia Pedo-thon work demand their entry fees be returned. It's not too late!
The insanity of this as a business model would appear obvious but I have heard that some of the network agencies evaluate performance at a fairly senior level based on the same measures. So the question that needs to be raised at the highest level is, what is the trade off between the alleged value of being able to recruit hot shot creatives, the feel-good factor when your agency hauls in a bunch of hardware at these shows, the glowing press in the trades etc etc, versus the damage the Kia, WWF and related smaller incidents we don't ever hear about do to our reputation as an industry?
In other words, what would you think about a law firm that submitted joke briefs to the court in the name of a client that had no idea it was being done? Or a surgeon who performed some completely unnecessary procedure because it was "edgy?"
As an industry we complain incessantly that clients don't listen. That they don't take our counsel. That they have given away our "seats at the big table" to consultants. That they don't want to pay us what our ideas are worth.
Wonder why?
What the boys in Brazil did to Kia, whether they were a party to it or not, was nothing short of malpractice. And if we say it doesn't matter, if we don't take that sort of thing seriously, then we might as well say that our business is one not to be taken seriously.
Maybe you can get this discussed more widely. It's long overdue.
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