Ogilvy & Mather: Ditching good creative, fearing client

"A charity campaign warning of the dangers of passive smoking has been scrapped by an advertising agency to prevent an embarrassing run-in with one of its most valued clients - British American Tobacco.

Ogilvy & Mather had offered to devise a free advertising campaign entitled "passive smoking kills" for a leading anti-smoking charity. It featured a hard-hitting and disturbing poster, showing a cigarette, designed like a barrel of a gun, firing a bullet. The concept was created by two junior creatives who won a competition to devise a campaign for the charity of their choice.

"We were all ready to go when they just rang up to say the chief executive had put a block on it," said Deborah Arnett, the director of Ash.

"Then they rang back to say they couldn't go ahead. They sounded embarrassed but said that it would represent a conflict of interest with BAT. They seemed so in fear of ... their client that they have ditched a really good ad."

"They were very embarrassed about the whole thing as you would expect. I've tried to contact Mike Walsh to find out whether it was his decision, but he hasn't called me back."

"We are a tiny organisation compared with Ogilvy & Mather, let alone BAT, so there's not a lot we can do about it but it is infuriating."

"It's not even as though we approached them - they came to us."