Hasta La Creative!

It’s not a real Cannes Lions festival without a little scandal. And Marcel can’t take all the glory, can he??

This year did, in fact, see another controversy develop as the festival approached its last day and the “Network of the Year” competition came down to a nail-biter between last year’s finalists, BBDO and Ogilvy.

Many thought that Clemenger BBDO of Australia had a strong contender in the the Titanium category, which celebrates “game-changers” that have “[broken] new ground in branded communications,” in the form of “Meet Graham.” The project, created for Transport Accident Commission of Victoria last year, stems from a basic idea: “designing” a human who can survive car crashes.

But the work was ultimately dismissed by both the Titanium and Integrated juries, which cited its similarity to this 1985 anti-smoking spot by agency FCO according to “a spokesman for the juries” cited in a Campaign report yesterday.

FWIW, this is the first time we have ever come across an unnamed representative speaking on behalf of two specific Cannes juries.

According to copywriter Rob Jankowski, the Blade Runner-inspired effort above was “The only advertisement ever to appear on UK terrestrial TV and in cinemas without any type or logo at the end.”

“Meet Graham” ultimately won the Grand Prix in Cyber and Health and Wellness, making it one of the more-awarded efforts of the festival. But multiple parties tell us Clemenger BBDO and the larger network were not at all happy with this decision … and that most of the jury members themselves had never heard of “Natural Born Smoker.”

Some felt that Clemenger BBDO was being accused of directly ripping off the earlier work, and creative chairman John McGrath directly countered that perception in a statement:

Clemenger BBDO Melbourne has built its reputation on originality. We are incredibly proud of that promise. How others judge it, and their motives for doing so, we do not know, nor is it any of our business. The “Meet Graham” project was created to solve one of our client’s greatest problems. Every stage of our process, from the very initial strategy and brief, was based on a unique understanding of road safety data and the physics of road accident trauma. The problem itself identified the creative outcome.

The smoking ad referred to is a 32 years old TV spot. It was absolutely not the inspiration for the sculpture/tech based idea developed for our client. We’d never even heard of it.

From BBDO Worldwide chief creative officer David Lubars:

We were greatly disappointed and surprised to learn that “Meet Graham” had been rejected from the Integrated and Titanium categories.  The implication that it had drawn inspiration from a UK TV ad from over 30 years ago—aside from being preposterous—was raised and addressed at the beginning of the festival. The work then went on to be judged favorably by other juries, just as it has been judged in other award shows such as D&AD (in which Clemenger BBDO received a Black Pencil for it and was named Agency of the Year).

As Lubars noted, it’s not clear why some unnamed members of the jury brought this matter up at the literal last minute. And now we’re hearing a slightly different spin behind why the work got dismissed.

One Titanium juror told us that seeing “Natural Born Smoker” made it hard for the jury to recognize “Meet Graham” with the Titanium award, which is designed to recognize new ways forward. No one was suggesting Clemenger BBDO knew about “Natural Born Smoker” while making “Graham,” this juror added. Rather, it was simply hard to give a Titanium Lion to work that had strong echoes of the past.

The spokesperson cited in Campaign’s earlier report did not make that distinction.

On the Carlton terrace Saturday night after the news broke, several Australian friends of Clemenger BBDO were angry about the “Graham” snub. They floated conspiracy theories about why certain jury members might have ulterior motives in killing the piece.

We reached out to a spokesperson for the agency, but it seems at this time that BBDO will not elaborate beyond the statements above.

And despite all this noise, the Omnicom company still won network of the year with Clemenger BBDO taking agency of the year.

We look forward to next year’s controversy.

Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp is abandoning plans to create an on-demand video service that would have competed for eyeballs with Netflix, Hulu and HBO.

The service intended to entice Vimeo’s more than 200 million viewers to pay for exclusive content. Vimeo will instead focus on a suite of tools for filmmakers.

Vimeo “has decided not to proceed in offering a subscription based original program service scheduled to begin in ’18,” a spokesperson at the video service said in an emailed statement Monday.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

China’s broadcasting regulator ordered Weibo Corp. and two other internet media firms to halt video and audio webcasting, accusing them of operating without a license and disseminating opinions potentially harmful to social stability.

The State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television said services operated by companies including Weibo — often called China’s Twitter — had been broadcasting negative commentary in violation of government regulations. The regulator didn’t say what action had been taken, and Weibo declined to comment while it studies the order.

The regulatory ban could disrupt a revival for Weibo that’s getting underway. The messaging service controlled by Sina Corp. has turned to video streaming over the past year to rejuvenate growth. The company has since reignited user interest, pushing its typical monthly audience to 340 million people — surpassing Twitter’s — and its stock market value above $16 billion. Chairman Charles Chao is now focused on expanding Weibo into areas including news aggregation and live video streaming. Weibo’s advertising and marketing revenue increased 42% in 2016, reaching $571 million.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp is abandoning plans to create an on-demand video service that would have competed for eyeballs with Netflix, Hulu and HBO.

The service intended to entice Vimeo’s more than 200 million viewers to pay for exclusive content. Vimeo will instead focus on a suite of tools for filmmakers.

Vimeo “has decided not to proceed in offering a subscription based original program service scheduled to begin in ’18,” a spokesperson at the video service said in an emailed statement Monday.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Back in February, we learned that Boca-Raton-based Office Depot OfficeMax had ended its relationship with IPG after two years with McCann New York and UM as its creative and media agencies, respectively, and moved both accounts to Fort Lauderdale Omnicom agency Zimmerman Advertising without a review.

Zimmerman had handled the account, beginning in 2011, before the chain selected McCann New York and UM following a review in the summer of 2014.

In its first campaign for Office Depot, Zimmerman seems to look towards the chain’s advertising past. The campaign revives the 1974 Bachman-Turner Overdrive song “Takin’ Care of Business” as Office Depot’s theme song in a spot that promises Office Depot will “Take care of you” so that you can “Take care of business.” Office Depot introduced the song as its theme in the late 80s (the last time it would have been remotely appropriate to use) and “has not used [it] in at least five years” according to AdAge.

Always a bit too on-the-nose for a chain selling business supplies, the song seems more outdated than ever in 2017. The spot is built around the song to a grewat extent, utilizing it in its copy and the “Taking care of business” taline. Clearly the approach is meant to differentiate Office Depot from competitors like Amazon, citing its specificity while simultaneously championing it as a destination for both school and office supplies, but the execution stumbles. In addition to the 30-second spot, there’s also a 15-second one focusing on back-to-school supplies, extending back-to-school seasonal creep nearly to the beginning of summer vacation. The campaign also includes radio, digital and social components.

“Our brand needs a bit of refreshing,” Office Depot vice president, marketing Diane Nicks told AdAge. “‘Taking care of business’ is more than just a tagline, it’s really how we’re going to connect emotionally with customers.”

“Amazon can have as many products and drones as you can imagine, but they don’t have the same focus and care about business,” added Zimmerman CEO Michael Goldberg.

We’ll see about that, won’t we?

21st Century Fox Inc.’s sports department is overhauling its online operations, eliminating the writing staff to invest in more-lucrative video production.

Fox Sports will eliminate about 20 writing and editing positions in Los Angeles and replace them with a similar number of jobs in video production, editing and promotion. Executives told staff in meetings Monday after outlining the new strategy in a memo obtained by Bloomberg. Affected employees will be encouraged to apply for the new posts.

The owner of Fox News and the Fox broadcast network has decided that paying writers to cover sporting events, pen columns or grade teams’ NBA draft moves is best left to ESPN and other news-focused sports sites. Fox is opting to divert those resources into producing online video that complements on-air shows, can be packaged into advertising sales across the web and TV, and has the potential to go viral on social media.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Ad Age “Media Guy” columnist Simon Dumenco’s media roundup for the morning of Monday, June 26:

Did you miss this media scan last week during its hiatus? Were you in the south of France for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity? Or, like me, were you not in the south of France but still sort of doing Cannes? Well, welcome back! Or not! Anyway, let’s get started …

1. Uh oh. “CNN is imposing strict new publishing restrictions for online articles involving Russia after the network deleted a story and then issued a retraction late Friday, according to an internal email obtained by BuzzFeed News,” per a report by BuzzFeed’s Jon Passantino. “The email went out at 11:21 a.m. on Saturday from Rich Barbieri, the CNNMoney executive editor, saying ‘No one should publish any content involving Russia without coming to me and Jason [Farkas],’ a CNN vice president.”

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Someday, when I look back at 2017, I suspect one of the defining moments for me will be that time a human service worker aggressively tried to steer me, a human customer, away from interacting with his fellow human service worker in favor of a robot.

That moment happened to me a few weeks back at a Chase bank branch in downtown Manhattan, where I live. I went in to deposit a check, saw that both of Chase’s fancy new in-branch ATMs were being used, then noticed that only one person was in line for the human tellers — so I queued up.

And then it happened: the confrontation. A Chase bank employee approached me and interrupted my line-waiting (and iPhone news-reading). I guess he saw that I had a check in my hand because he said, “If you’re making a deposit, you can use one of the new ATMs over there.”

Continue reading at AdAge.com