Bobby Pawar, chief creative officer and managing partner at JWT India, axed as the Ford India sexually offensive ad controversy deepens
UPDATED STORY: The PR crisis from Ford’s India ad controversy, continues with an official apology from the automaker, and the immediate dismissal of the individuals behind the sexually offensive ad from JWT Delhi. The scandal has seen axings from the very top with Bobby Pawar, Chief Creative Officer & Managing Partner at JWT India (pictured at the recent Campaign Brief Asia party at AdFest in Thailand), axed from the agency late yesterday after it was discovered the campaign had been entered into India’s biggest awards show, GoaFest. Interestingly, all entries to GoaFest have to be reviewed and approved by senior creative management of the agency and by the client. The controversy may continue as speculation within the Indian industry is that someone from Ford’s marketing department may have signed off on these GoaFest entries, as per the regulations for all entries to the Indian Festival.
JWT, India’s largest agency network, had earlier in the evening issued an updated statement saying: “We deeply regret the publishing of posters that were distasteful and contrary to the standards of professionalism and decency at JWT. These were never intended for paid publication, were never requested by our Ford client and should never have been created, let alone uploaded to the internet. These posters were created by individuals within the agency and did not go through the normal review and oversight process. After a thorough internal review, we have taken appropriate disciplinary action with those involved, which included the exit of employees at JWT. These were necessary steps owing to the direct accountability of the concerned individuals as we work to ensure that both the right oversight and processes are strictly enforced so that this never happens again.”
Also let go yesterday was the Vijay Simha Vellanki, the creative director of Blue Hive, a JWT division that manages the Ford business.
According to reports in India JWT India has withdrawn all Ford ads entered into GoaFest
Ford spokesperson Chris Preuss had also issued a statement: “The investigation over what happened is ongoing. Obviously, appropriate actions will be taken, including the dismissal of individuals who were found to be culpable.There’s a deep partnership between WPP and Ford. Obviously, the issue was located in one place. It obviously happened with individuals who were acting outside of any normal oversight we have. This is a very, very serious matter and it’s being handled as such. Right now, the actions are being dealt with at our local agency. Again, everybody is extremely unhappy and regretting this has happened.”
Bobby Pawar joined JWT India in November 2011 from the DDB Mudra Group, replacing Agnello Dias, who had resigned to form independent agency, Taproot India.
His career in the industry spans the globe: at DDB Mudra Pawar was chief creative officer. He has worked for Ogilvy Mumbai, Tara Sinha Associates and Rediffusion in India, and Ogilvy & Mather New York and BBDO Chicago. He returned to India, and joined Mudra, in 2007 and has worked with many tier-one brands, including Volkswagen, Emirates, Philips, Lifesavers and AT&T.
The controversy which started several days ago when a series of offensive ads created by JWT Delhi showing female celebrities bound and gagged in the trunk of Ford Figo hatchback were uploaded tointernational ad websites.
The ads were not approved by Ford but rather created by staffers at JWT India, which handles advertising for Ford in the country. The posters depicted reality TV star Paris Hilton with what appears to be Kim Kardashian and her two sisters tied up in the trunk of her car. The tagline: “Leave your worries behind with Figo’s extra large boot.”
Another showed Silvio Berlusconi, former Prime Minister of Italy, who was embroiled in a sex scandal of his own. In it, he’s flashing a victory sign while three half-dressed women struggle against their bonds.
27 Comments
Has anyone here actually been to India?
I have.
Have you seen the ads?
If it wasn’t for the award festivals desperately sucking every Asian dollar than can get, the entries from most of India should be seen for what they are, the advertising equivalent of the Nigerian 419 scam letter.
No wonder awards have lost all currency.
D&AD, maybe One Show.
The rest can fuck off.
The worst bit is…
The ads are absolute fucking rubbish. These guys are smoking way too much of the bad shit…
Don’t they need to provide a signed letter from the client to enter?
Or is JWT scared to lose the account if they produce that letter?
Two things stand out for me about this story. I’m amazed that an agency thinks they can upload ads onto ads of the world and enter them in award shows if they know that the client hasn’t seen/approved/signed them off. Secondly, that ad creatives are still trying to make their name with scam print ads. It shows how completely out of touch some agencies/countries are with what is going on in our industry. That ignorance alone shows that the parties who got canned don’t deserve their jobs.
the issue here for me is not that they created these mock ups (which are juvenile) in the first place but that they were entered and accepted into a major awards show. if this shot doesn’t scream scam, what does. Shame on GoaFest and shame on JWT India.
Sounds to me like a client knew all about this but the agency is protecting their arse.
Having been on the receiving end of a so called “scam” controversy, I can vouch for the shameless “back-stabbing” that prevails in situations like this. Firstly HQ get involved and we know the American’s first reaction is to panic. I will bet my bottom dollar that many in the agency & client knew of this work but when the shit hit the fan everyone denied all knowledge of its existence. And as usual creatives get the chop.
The greatest pity was that the work concerned was crap. My mantra is if there’s a possibility of the shit hitting the fan, make sure the work is fucking great.
..and one more thing, “let he who has not sinned, cast the first stone”.
Wait this is campaignbriefasia right? What we don’t know what a scam ad is? For shame.
Everyone fucking scams. It is the business we have made. It sucks but many brilliant careers have been built on lies like this.
They do however deserve to be fired for ever thinking this shit was worth awarding though. It is terrible work.
Thanks to a bunch of own goals by a bunch of idiots.
I too find it impossible to believe that these ads were created under the curtain of secrecy and entered to GoaFest without the client seeing and signing off on them (for awards only). Imagine what would happen if they had won. Most judges these days are highy unqualified to tell a good ad so its possible.
I think that Goa Fest should ban the agency from the show for 5 years.The entire creative team should not be given jobs by any other self respecting agency as a lesson to other aspiring scammers.
Scammers should stick to the usual avenues for their proactive , pro bono stuff: SPCA, Red Cross, Green Peace, Bike shops, Amnesty etc.
A well deserved sacking for Mr. Pawar. A sad but necessary end.
This is not so much about “scam” ads which almost everyone has done, but about the sheer offensiveness and tastelessness of the ads.
Of course Mr. Pawar knew. Everyone in a large agency knows what everyone else is doing. These things are impossible to hide.
Something very, very wrong happened under Mr. Pawar’s watch. For him to say “I wasn’t aware” is childish.
Here’s hoping that we don’t have to see such things happening ever again.
All of a sudden everyone’s an authority on “scams”.
We all know what’s the real story here. This is just like the whole Kia fiasco. The only oversight was extremely poor judgement. Especially when a major brand is involved. Take a page from the likes of vw, mercedes, jeep, land rover… or coke, guinness, post-it…
That WPP pretends to be shocked about this is a fucking joke.
It is what they are increasingly demanding from ECDs. Or else. Their current crop of worldwide ECDs all got their massively impressive award tallies by scamming, and their salaries and bonuses are tied to award tallies so they are putting acid on their underlings to do the same.
The only problem here is that the scam was badly executed and so offensive they got caught. WPP’s only problem is the getting caught bit. And they are not the only network doing it.
Let’s be honest, scamming is now the norm in the advertising award world.
We need to change that berlusconi illustration…put sorrell in the drivers seat and those goons from JWT in the boot.
Then the ad will actually make some sense.
Ford spokesperson Chris Preuss had also issued a statement:
“Obviously, appropriate actions will be taken, including the dismissal of individuals who were found to be culpable.There’s a deep partnership between WPP and Ford. Obviously, the issue was located in one place. It obviously happened with individuals who were acting outside of any normal oversight we have.”
Three “obviously”s in four sentences?
As if working for Ford while having a surname derived from a Toyota model wasn’t bad enough.
Also, Mike (above) – about 80% of Cannes entries scream “scam” but that doesn’t make a blind bit of difference.
Albert Scamus , Good one!
Imagine giving Oscars to films never made, Pritzkers to buildings that don’t exist or Nobel prizes for deeds not achieved. That is precisely what happens in advertising and what makes this industry a joke. And the fact that ECD career trajectories and salaries are tied to fake work (nay, lies) is unconscionable.
It’s time for our own Arab Spring. NO MORE SCAMS.
Well said.
That’s why no matter how much we promote ourselves with rankings and points of what is essentially a fantasy football league, creative ‘legends in their lunchtime’ get no respect from the people who really matter-the clients.
Clients don’t really care how many creative trophies we collect because thanks to Bobby and his gang of ‘caught with their hands in the pants’ creatives, the world assumes they are all scams.
Possibly the only one which merits consideration is EFFIES as the client is an involved stakeholder.
@ Over-it – do you really believe that EFFIES aren’t scammed too?
Huh – Having run a national Effies programme and judged at global Effie Awards, I can say with a reasonable degree of confidence that Effies are not scammable. You have to provide real market data and verifiable results. The judges (many of whom are clients) tend to tear dodgy case entries to shreds.
Speaking of scam – how much of our local award show was filled with stuff ‘obviously designed to win awards’?
I don’t think suit tailors or dog rescue homes have ever had it so good, which is why we should promote scam, for the 80 odd people who watched a video through a pair of special glasses.
And they awarded that over real work for banks, telcos and train lines.
Judge not, lest ye be judged…
Real work or scam ads…what’s the difference if it doesn’t win in any shows?
I’m very sure that most people in the industry who moan and bitch about scam ads have done scam ads before. Only difference is they haven’t won in any significant award shows, in doing so.
And I can bet my last dollar that these people haven’t won’t anything worthwhile with their real work either. Maybe the reason for not winning is because these people are just not very good creatives.
And I’ve never heard of anyone who wins with real work bitching about others winning with their scams. Again, only those who never win do the bitching.
A bad ad is a bad ad… doesn’t matter if it’s real or a scam.
Anyone who can seriously defend scams is clearly a junior, or has the immaturity of a junior or never has been taken seriously enough to take on a grown up management role in an agency.
Clue: Your title may say Chief-whatever but that doesn’t mean you have the same clout as the CFO or CEO.
Look at your self in the mirror scammers.
Truth hurts, don’t it.
Has the relentless pursuit of awards improved REAL creative work? Just switch on the TV or flip open the papers and you’ll have the answer, wherever you are.
Real creative work takes the talents of an entire agency, cements relationships and makes money for everyone. Scam work takes one guy dreaming up some bizarre stuff that will do nothing except maybe for his career.
I can’t put it more simply.
Many clients are now into awards the same (misguided) way agencies are. They demand awards via initiative work which they WILL sign off on, assuming they are not risky.
But then these same clients continue to put agencies in restraints on the day-to-day real work.
That, IMO, is why the creative work at the awards keeps improving, but 90% of the real work remained as boring as they were 20yrs ago.