The South African Playstation campaign which caffeinegoddess alerted us to earlier, Duel and War (view PS2 Duel here and PS2 War here) which was the 'great Gold hope' for South Africa in Cannes, has been axed from the competition. TBWA Hunt Lascaris' Creative Director Paul Warner, who worked on this ads had this statement to share:
"TBWA London, as custodians of the Sony Playstation account worldwide, have announced that South Africa is regrettably unable to do brand advertising on the Playstation account, the reason being that South Africa falls under the territory of London and has to get all authorisation from the London office. London has officially ruled that 'War' and 'Duel' have been withdrawn with immediate effect from Cannes 2005 and all other award ceremonies around the world."
In the latest issue of Boards these ads were already being tipped as Gold winners, it's almost a crime that by the looks of it network politics is robbing these films of their chance. Network agencies should be about sharing ideas worlwide for worldwide clients, no? Would this not include sharing the glory when great ideas can gain great awards? Read more over at marketingweb.co.za
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I'm very confused....Did the South Africa office make the ads on their own and then pitch them to Playstation without telling the London mothership? Or did Playstation ask the South African office to work on the project? Who the fuck asked who to do what? Did the ads even air? What's the full story?
As for "Network agencies should be about sharing ideas worlwide for worldwide clients, no? Would this not include sharing the glory when great ideas can gain great awards?" --- Are you suggesting that every creative team within a worldwide agency network should be allowed to work on any client they want whenever they want and just show up with scripts and ideas because they're super cool ideas? That's utterly ridiculous.
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PermalinkIf you follow the links in the post, it explains some of it. I think others involved though are probably just as confused as you are.
To Dabitch's point about sharing worldwide ideas, it's interesting considering in the first post about these films has a quote about sharing ideas worldwide within a network agency. Here it is again for those who are too lazy to follow the link.
It's really a shame agency politics or whatever it is that's going on has to get in the way of good work.
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PermalinkWho isn't confused at this point mate? :)
I know I am. Here's what's happeend in Days of our creative network so far: John Hunt worldwide creative director has talked the fancy pep-talk that every team in the TBWA network is worthy to work on every worldwide client - allowing them to 'stretch their creativity on an international level' and all that jazz.
Then, inspired by pep-talk, TBWA South Africa pitches these two spec ads (done and paid for by TBWA SA who believed in the idea so much) to PS2, and gets them approved North American head office, as that's the market at which the ads were targeted. Great!
Now TBWA london "as custodians of the Sony Playstation account worldwide" says thes two ads can't compete anywhere. Weirdness!
Also worth noting is that John Hunt, the worldwide creative director of TBWA Hunt Lascaris is also the Jury President of the Film category at Cannes this year. Anyway, seems that I agree with Matthew Bull;
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PermalinkPS - I dunno if the SA pitched to the NA without telling the London mothership - tune in to the next episode of Days of our creative network to find out. ;)
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