Scam: Will tough new rules alter Asia’s attitude
One story in the last issue of Campaign Brief Asia has been causing lots of comment over the past 8 weeks. Repeated requests for magazines and pdf copies has lead up to post the whole story as a PDF file (see below).
The story covers the current position Awards shows and festivals are taking towards the issue of Scam advertising. With award shows cracking down on scam ads – all because of a half page ad for WWF created by DDB Brazil – which when eventually exposed, caused an uproar around the advertising world.
One Show, who were the show embarrassed by the WWF ad and were the first to act have introduced tough penalties for scammers that some ECDs believe will lead to a 50% drop in entries this year. Other shows have introduced their own penalties targeting scam.
Here’s a few quotes from One Show and the Asian-based ECDs quoted in our story (download the full story below):
Kevin Swanepoel, president, The One Club: “There is no risk of banning if the work was legit and was for a real client. Certainly entering real work is not ‘too-hard’. You either had a brief from a client, created the work and it was approved to run or you did not. If you didn’t, don’t enter it. It is really easy to produce wonderfully creative ads without the restrictions of solving a specific problem from a client or be approved by a client. The One Show has always been seen as the fairest award show, during judging there is no discussion and the jury vote by anonymous ballot. The area where we can improve is to eliminating scam ads and by establishing these new rules we hope to do this.”
John Merrifield, creative at large, TBWA\Asia Pacific: “I don’t expect the penalties to have much impact considering that scamming one’s way to notoriety is fairly well entrenched in Asia. Scam adverts are fool’s gold – only Muppets need apply. One or two agencies seem to have made a cottage industry out of it. The silliest bit is the excuses they come up with to justify the indulgence. Delusions of adequacy?”
Tay Guan Hin, JWT regional ECD South-East Asia: “Besides penalizing the agencies, shouldn’t the judges themselves be penalized for awarding that ad in the first place? Maybe, everyone from organizers to judges to agencies should all take full responsibility should this episode arise again. I wouldn’t be surprised if some agencies might not want to take the chance if they don’t comply to their requirements – five years ban feels like a prison sentence.”
Eugene Cheong, creative president of Ogilvy & Mather, Asia-Pacific: “Pro-bonos, in my view, are not only good for your soul, they are fabulous for your career too. Just ask John Merrifield: If that old motor-mouth hadn’t harassed UNICEF, and harangued Sng Tong Beng into shooting the ‘babies on the conveyor’ spot for nothing, he’d still be holed up in Jakarta drinking Bintang. Pro bonos level the playing field. They allow John Nobody to show John Hegarty that he’s an old fart, Knight of the British Empire Notwithstanding.”
Danny Searle, BBDO Asia regional creative director: “I reckon it is the crackdown we had to have. The trouble with scam ads is that they reinforce some clients perceptions that ‘creative’ ads are self serving and indulgent. In some ways, they have been responsible for the falling standard of real work across the industry. I think there will be even more charity ads out there as this will be the way agencies get around the ruling.”
Andy Greenaway, regional creative director, Saatchi & Saatchi South-East Asia: “The only way to differentiate yourself from the competition was to be seen to be more creative. And the way you did that was to win more awards than your competitors. And the only way to do that was to do a shitload of scam. So networks supported the game (even the toadies who claim to be squeaky clean). However, I believe the game has changed. It is no longer just about whether you are more creative, but also about how you can connect and involve consumers in a massively fragmented media landscape.”
Download the PDF of the story here:
23 Comments
Interesting comment from Ogilvy. Spot the odd one out!
You wonder how Andy and John sleep at night.
They made their way to the top under the old system which is all fair enough, but now they are king of the hill in Singapore earning big money each month they can turn around and say to the kiddies that we can’t play the same game that got them to the top.
Saatchi, TBWA and others rose to their great heights based on pro bono in Singapore.
Eugene is right to point out John Merrifield’s past. Andy Greenaway rose to the top at Ogilvy on Guinness and God campaigns. At Saatchi & Saatchi it has been all print awards up until this year where all Saatchi offices are not allowed to enter award shows except Cannes.
Scam ads are wrong, but I will continue to be proactive on my clients and hopefully I will be the next John Merrifield or Andy Greenaway someday.
How can a bunch of print led ECD’s with the exception of Danny Searle be asked to pass judgement on Creativity in Asia when all of them rose to the top off scam print. It’s shameful that this industry is still being led by them and a hinderance to any young aspiring creative who is is being force fed old notions of what works.
Greenaway and Cheong have held this industry back for years and its time for change …. REAL CHANGE
If Singapore and Asia is going to recover from the ghastly scam hangover it drank itself into then please can someone stand up and start putting the right young fresh talent at the helm because the current bar staff are pouring bad rounds
And we aint swallowing anymore
They sleep at night on a bed of dollars and cents. They have no conscience.
Scam ads might be outlawed in the international arena, but the local ad shows will still see them in thousands. At the Kancils, print scam ads were a dime in the dozen. The shocking thing is why no judge can spot it. Seriously, it’s obvious. Unless these judges are obviously too shy to point it out. ‘Face’ is a major Asian issue after all.
Andy Greenaway at least acknowledges it has to change – and Saatchi have taken a stance. Ogilvy are still way behind the times. And also haven’t produced anything note worthy in sometime?
Good story.
The way I view it is that Greenaway and Merrifield are like Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. They’ve done all the rebellious drugs and booze. But now they’re happy with knighthoods and peppermint tea.
But these old guys have to stop being reformed preachers and realise that us Green Day’s and Kings of Leon’s have to have our fun before we turn to the tea.
After all the One Show hardline on scam – then we have the finalists list announced today.
Kevin, look in the mirror. It’s all about money for you guys. Just like Cannes. Just like D&AD.
Andy stop with the Printosaurus every time you write or say something. At least until you guys win a big award for something that’s not print.
12.19 John Merrifield is a funny guy.
4.40 The Kancils are laughable.
8.22 Very funny.
6.59 Well said.
Once again, the comments make for better reading than the quotes.
Appalled by the comments made by Eugene Cheong….clearly he relishes aping his mentor Neil French’s liking for outrageousness….but then again look what happened to Frenchy.
We could accept all this pro bono initiative hogwash if only the individuals preaching could post one…just one…..ad done by them in the past 10 years to a real brief set by the client that shows us a ‘stonker’ of a way to solve a real problem. (Baby Diaper brochures don’t count).
We won’t see one because there is none.
Has Ogilvy ever done a campaign like Axe or Cadbury on a speculative basis and then persuaded a client to run with it in a big way? No again.
What would Obama have done? Well, he certainly wouldn’t talk shit like some of the people interviewed.
12.06
most sensible summary.
Eugene is just attempting to use his considerable verbals skills to pull the wool over. Trying to distance ‘intitiative” from scam should actually hang him.
Yes, there is a difference – yes one is a justifiable push for creativity on real brands.
Which have Ogilvy been doing…?
Lay out the big winners from Ogilvy Singapore from the last few years and it’s wall to wall pro bono and…well, thinly disguised scam.
Is he citing the sri lankan charities (?) the local church groups, FHM or Changi prison etc as the big brands they have pushed ‘intitiative’ work on..? How successful have they been in moving the Unilevers, Amex’s up the creative ladder?
He’s not even doing a French. Neil had the cohones to step out and say that yes in some ways scam was good for the industry and that awards were simply self gratification for creatives and all about patting ourselves on the back!
Danny Searle wins.
Quick question:
Why has the outed oldschool scam merchant Merrifield gone anonymous with his comments? (12.06).
I love the fact that Merrifield has been outed. I cant believe he has criticized these rankings as he lived off and benefited from his high position from the vertical poster idea. He writes all this and yet he supported Eric and TBWA Paris at every opportunity he had.
Andy Greenaway needs to come up with some non print awards before we can give any credibility to his comments. The network is losing all their best talent after all.
Danny Searle – well said. I agree, but you are involved and run with the system so you are just sitting on the fencs.
Eugene Cheong is wrong, but at least he is honest.
AC said (quite rightly): “Andy Greenaway rose to the top at Ogilvy on Guinness and God campaigns.”
But everyone knows it was Eugene who WROTE the God campaign.
Seems more like a situation of peers falling out.
To 3:58
Everyone on here is anonymous! You don’t know it’s him. I know it’s not
BTW, the fact that all of us are anonymous is also a sad state of affairs. Scams are such an obvious issue to point out, yet to use our own names would be our death knell in the industry. I mean, criticise the gods? Oh my, shame on us.
The definition of pro bono is: “To work for the good of the public rather than for a profit or income…..for the right, the moral, the good”
The law firms invented it but then somehow agency creatives stumbled across it.
When work is done just to benefit the few, how is it pro bono?
face it! scamp is creative porn for all the shit we do everyday…. it helps the thinking. Do more interactive web scamp and we can get away with one show!!
why all the comments? Who is this Merrifield.
ALL HAVE SINNED AND FALLEN SHORT OF THE GLORY OF GOD
To 3:58
Ask why anonymous? Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth. Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car. I’m very much into exquisiteness but I am totally against plastic surgery.
Well… one can hardly find any true closeness in this trade because everybody does the fake closeness so well. It’s pathetic that in advertising, people are the only animals who eat themselves to death. Isn’t it obvious that everyone should learn to fake it until you make it? Study the past, you would divine the future.
At times I felt my bosses here are more of a Chinese philosopher as I had learnt; A true leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.
I’ll not put on a fake image. Least, I’m not ‘Anonymous’