You Don’t Watch The Oscars for the Commercials, But You Could

Traditional advertising showcases are few and far between today, along with opportunities to appeal to a mass audience. Last night’s Academy Awards is one. According to Variety, the 2023 Oscars earned an audience of 18.75 million—more than double the most popular shows on TV (NCIS and FBI). The best “commercial” of the evening was “I’m […]

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David Droga Is Always Making, Shaping, and Creating

In this on-camera interview, CNBC’s Tania Bryer asks David Droga, founder of Droga5, CEO of Accenture Song, and the most awarded person in Cannes Lion history, what his secret ingredient is. Droga replies, “Not piss a lot of people off…No, I don’t know, I’ve always been restless and curious. I’ve been lucky that I’ve worked […]

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Leo Burnett Receives Four Grand Clios for their Gun Control Work

Since 1963, nearly 193,000 children and teens have been killed with guns on American soil—more than four times the number of U.S. soldiers killed in action in the Vietnam, Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq wars combined, according to Children’s Defense Fund. According to the gun control advocacy group Change The Ref, last year alone 3,044 […]

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“Owning A Large Portion of the Best Talent” Is Pre-COVID Thinking

Like so many businesses, the agency business is a talent business from top to bottom. Nothing good happens without extraordinary efforts made by dedicated, gifted people working as one. Agency heads used to say the agency’s “best assets,” a.k.a. the talent, walk out the door and go down the elevator each evening. Of course, these […]

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Ad Chatter, Season 2, Episode 7: Apple, Motel 6, Rory Sutherland, Cannes, and Cryptocurrency

Ad Chatter, now in its second season, has “gone global” with the addition of London-based strategist Toby Donaldson in the recording booth. Toby adds a lot of value to the mix. He started writing articles for Adpulp last year and the site is stronger for his contributions. In this 40-minute episode Toby, Dan Goldgeier, and […]

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I Hear Advertising Voices. Do You Hear Them Too?

The waves of change are here. Consequently, people are searching for their sea legs. Ad people are also painting pictures of dark and/or dreamy futures. Here’s one picture that is not pleasing to my senses… McKinney CEO Joe Maglio, writing in Ad Age, believes there’s a compelling need for trophies, no matter what: Many of […]

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It’s Awards Season, And Sandy Hook Promise Is Collecting Some Hardware

BBDO New York’s “Back to School Essentials” Public Service Announcement for Sandy Hook Promise is the inaugural “Storytelling for Good” Award winner. The award is given by Clio, the premier international awards competition for the creative business, and Brand Storytelling, an industry-leading B2B media company focused on branded content. “Storytelling for Good” celebrates branded entertainment […]

Enter Epica, The Creative Contest Judged By Journalists

ICYMI: Epica Awards are open for submission until October 7, 2019 When you submit your agency’s work to Epica, it will be judged by 200 trade journalists from around the world, myself included. In my opinion, trophies granted via peer review are a needless fixture in an industry where vanity is celebrated instead of shunned. […]

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Advertising’s Young Folks Don’t Need Awards or the Long Hours

The industry has changed. Change is hard. This may or may not explain the plethora of bitching and moaning about how the industry has changed not for the better. Before we get rolling, may I suggest a musical interlude? Really? Another Trophy? How About A Raise, So I Can Buy A House? Adweek reports that […]

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Oscars’ Commercials Debut In the Other Advertising “Super Bowl”

Ad people love industry award shows and people working in advertising have a natural affinity for the people who make films, since they often work side-by-side on 30- and 60-second films, also known as commercials. The Oscar Awards are therefore a big deal. Not Super Bowl big, but big nonetheless. In media buying terms, ABC […]

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Do You Work With Someone Over 40 Who Has Wicked Tradigital Chops?

I recently offered up the term, “tradigital” in conversation with another ad pro. The person on the receiving end hadn’t heard that one before. I smiled. Digital is a progression, an adjustment, a new opportunity. Digital is new media, but marketing is old as the hills. Thus, digital marketing requires a solid foundation in the […]

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#NSFW Self-Promo Video Morphs Into Hot Shit Agency Recruitment Vid

No one tells it like it is today. If someone dares to do so, they’re at risk of being cast out by the meek and mild masses. Toronto-based independent Zulu Alpha Kilo could give a shit. The agency is looking to fill 14 new positions and they want all the prima fucking donnas ad school […]

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Epica Is An Award Show With A Marked Point of Difference

Too many award shows are back-slapping affairs where hungover creative directors drop a bean in a cup when they see a campaign they like. There’s a much higher standard for the industry’s output—the intended audience for the work. Did they bite or did they ignore? That’s the ultimate test of any ad campaign. Having said […]

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David Droga Wants You To Care, And He’s Not Alone In That

David Droga poured his heart out during The Lion of St. Mark interview at Cannes this year. He cares and he wants you to care too. Do you care? Adweek picked up on his call to action, and captured the essence of the hour-long chat with this pull quote: I would put down everything in […]

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It’s A Free Country (Provided You’re Not Confined To A Cubicle)

Holding companies are the bane of the creative agency’s existence. Sell to a holding company and become like the bean counters themselves—that’s the not totally undeserved rap. Thankfully, there is another way. Your agency can remain independent, like Butler Shine Stern & Partners in Sausalito. Then you can choose to do whatever the hell you […]

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A Child’s Pain Is The City’s Pain Is The Nation’s Pain

The kids who rely on Youth Ambassadors in Kansas City are in the line of fire today. In other words, the kids are not currently living a storybook childhood. Perhaps, that’s why these animated tales from VML contain such awesome power. The agency is presenting some of the harshest truths about our culture in a […]

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Like Lions, Hard Truths Are Hard To Come By

Photojournalism is a beautiful documentary art and a much-needed pursuit in today’s mixed up world of lies and propaganda. Thankfully, The New York Times employs some of the world’s best photojournalists. The newspaper’s ad agency, Droga5, wisely saw this truth and placed it at the center of this Cannes Lion-winning ad campaign. The combination of […]

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Titanium Cannes Jury’s Snub of ‘Meet Graham,’ Over Similarities to a 1985 Ad, Sparks Controversy

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.

Will Ad People Ever Willingly Walk Away from False Idols?

Most advertising award shows are expensive navel-gazing affairs that miss the mark badly, which is particularly woeful news for an industry that prides itself on driving results from targeted marketing. Given the problem, I was encouraged to learn that Wieden + Kennedy had recently considered giving up award shows. That would have been a brave […]

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Call for Submissions: Tell Us What You Really Think About Marcel

Oh hey. Remember last January when Amir Kassaei announced, in a Campaign op-ed, that the world would be seeing a little less of DDB at the 2016 awards shows?

He made sure to note that his employer has “won more Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity than any other network on the planet” while throwing a whole lot of shade at everyone else: “Too many of us in the industry have bought into the idea that winning awards is proof of creative effectiveness, so much so that we’re willing to sacrifice our integrity to get them. And in turn that has lessened the integrity of the awards themselves.”

As we knew then and still know now, his promise was a whole bunch of bullshit.

But it’s worth noting in light of Arthur Sadoun’s announcement yesterday that Publicis Groupe would ban all of its agencies from participating in awards shows, trade shows or any other sort of paid promotional effort until the holding company has finished developing its AI-based global platform Marcel.

He claimed that means Publicis will be completely absent from next year’s Cannes, CES, the Clios, the Effies and every other awards event big or small.

Will he keep his promise? Was this all just a big PR stunt, especially given the fact that Publicis currently lags behind all the other major holding companies in its 2017 Cannes total? What if both things are simultaneously true?

Anyway, now that our anonymous comments have gone to that great troll home in the sky (R.I.P.), we would like to ask everyone reading—especially Publicis employees—to tell us what you really think about Marcel.

The topic has already gone somewhat “viral” on Fishbowl, the app that aspires to be a gossip magnet for people in various industries including advertising.

Some takes that are mildly hot:

“Marcel, please tap into your network and give high fives to all former Publicis employees who are so grateful to have left at this moment.”

“Am I the only one relieved we are going to stop wasting time and money over awards and schmooze fests? Thanks Marcel.”

“Marcel is just vaporware that will never live up to its billing.”

“Bonjour, Marcel! Can you connect me with a recruiter.”

So far, the only reader to weigh in via our tip box (which is still 100% anonymous, by the way) had a very succinct response: “FUCK YOU.”

Feel free to use your Facebook thing or the tip box on the right.