With rare exception, employee hires/fires and awards show results are two things I won’t cover here are. Except this one. I saw where Ogilvy Johannesburg ran a campaign for The History Channel portraying America as the bad guy. It wins Silver at the Clios and so what, right?
1) It never ran, that’s so what. That’s the first and most obvious problem. To borrow the Iraq War theme from one of the scads: Shock! Awe! Scam at award shows, oh no! There are other less important issues here: the average Photoshop work, the anti-American theme, an unaware client [History Channel], whether people copy ideas from other award-winning work, or if award shows even matter.
That it didn’t run undermines everything. To mix industry metaphors, it basically tells everyone else who was able to get real work produced, fuck you, I just lip-synched my way to a gold record. (On the other point about a need for award shows, yes, there absolutely should be recognition for being able to not only survive 20 rounds of revisions and 20 layers of client approval, but producing something people notice. Here’s a statue and a beer, have at it.)
Jobs, advances, salary and agency standing in many cases is based on award show results though. Spec in a book to get a job? Fine. Spec strategy and creative an agency pitch to land an account? Fine. Saying work ran when it didn’t though is basically saying you couldn’t sell it.
Naive, sure, but cheating was always supposed to be wrong. Least that’s what they told way back. A-Rod, Martha Stewart and so on. Yeah, it happens in every industry, and yeah, consumers could care less because they’re not in this one. You only have to read the comments in that article to they focus on the theme, not the agency responsible.
Industry responses whenever this happens say this is no big deal, that it’s just ads which are fake anyway, so what. Some tried to compare it to the movie and TV industries where story ideas are copied left and right. (Again, copying is another animal. There’s plenty of stuff in advertising that’s actually run, won awards and was still a blatant rip of a previous campaign. So much for that arguement.)
Sure a lot of people are born without that give a fuck gene, but real money’s at stake in the promotions creatives get or the new business generated from award show wins.
2) Client looks bad because they were brandjacked. Based on the timeline of events in the article, History Channel not only disapproves, but has asked their logo be removed from all ads. There’s no legal remedy for an agency doing this, but it just cheapens their rep. Speaking of...
3) Legal issues. Here’s one thing in particular that gets me. Not for the scammer, but if AdRants can get sued over running a Virgin scam ad—even after checking its origins—why is History Channel not suing Adsoftheworld.com? You can’t have different standards for shit like this. AOTW published it even though it was fake. How is it not the same thing?
I’ve ranted long enough. Now I turn the mouse over to you...
7 comments:
I won't address the first 2 points (though I'm not sure I totally agree with 1), but for part 3, I would argue it falls under Fair Use (of course I'm referring to the US standard, as Fair Use doesn't exist under many systems). The ads are as much parody and criticism of the History Channel as they are the US. That's covered.
Not sure I get why 1 is even a question. It didn't run. If that's the case, then why not just enter all fake work?
Since you seem to kind of ask, here's why I kind of disagree with 1. Agreed, the `shop isn't all that, but I think the ads are fucking brilliant.
If all history is is a rote recitation of dates and events, what's the point? For any review of history to be worthwhile, at some point you have to ask, "What was accomplished, and was it worth it?" You can't get meaningful answers to those questions if you don't consider all the facts from a variety of perspectives. The ads illustrate that point....they beg those questions. The brand is "The History Channel" and the ads promise its viewer a serious presentation of history. Provocative? To be sure, but they also work.
The reason no one saw the ads wasn't based on any measure of quality, but because of politics. Because of the very type of reaction you linked to on redstate.com. The ads said, "we'll give you a thoughtful discussion of history." That they didn't run, and the subsequent weak-assed response by A&E Networks says that is not the case. It reinforces the message of the ad, "History is Written by the Winners" and goes on to add, "and We Won't Question the Official Version."
Despite the actual merits of the campaign, it was killed by politics. In the process, and unwittingly, the ad ad tells you everything you really need to know about the brand.
You're right, it didn't run, but for all the wrong reasons.
Like I said, I only half disagree with your point. I half agree with it. As much as I don't like to see work that did run rewarded, I don't like to see great work get buried because it doesn't conform to some Statist point of view.
“As much as I don't like to see work that did run rewarded”
(Assume you mean work that didn't run.) That’s the only point there for me. Political message aside, many ads for consumer products that never ran get entered in shows.
As for the message part:
- All politics being local, I'm sure anti-American sentiment goes over well overseas. Locally in NYC? Doubt it.
- These also seem to make light of the U.S.’s historic penchant for war by forgetting to mention a few things. WWII had been going on for two years prior to Pearl Harbor and the bomb had been dropped only after significant losses by Allied forces.
- If I was a flag-waving patriot, I might be tempted to say another thing those ads show is that bad things happen when you kill 3,000+ Americans at once. If.
- Creatives have an obligation to make sure concepts fit the brand. History Channel is not about political statements bashing the home country of its corporate office. They may cover that stuff, but that’s different than putting out the message themselves.
- The stats in the Iraq ad are misleading. The implication of “under” being that the US alone killed all those people. This totally discounts the role of the insurgency and Al Qaida.
- It’s inconsistent. Two anti-American ads and then a stat on the changing British demographic. Why not go for the American hatred hat trick?
- If Ogilvy wants to make a political statement, then participate in the Rebrand America project and take up their space with this shit.
- Ironic the ad is from an agency which started in the same city as 9/11, the inciting event for the Iraq War.
See, that's my point. History, if done well, IS provocative. It invites just this kind of discussion, and passion. I didn't see those ads as anti-American. I saw the question, "was it worth it?" All the examples were American, but that's kind of the premise of the ad, isn't it? The history we get is because we are Americans. We are the winners. If they wanted to back to a battle where the US was the big looser, there's always Antietam, from the War of Northern Aggression, the Union got their ass kicked there. Wait....damn it! They lost the battle, but won the war. They got to write the history. That's why all the kids in the north say the war was about slavery, while kids in the south say it really wasn't. And they're both right. History is like that. Southerners ask the question, "was it worth it?" Germans do to. So should we.
You're right, the concept has to fit the brand. The brand is history, not mythology. To do history, you have to look at all the data and listen to all the point of view. If you let political correctness and bias choose what questions you ask and who you listen to you wind up with propaganda, not history. What you're left with advertising.
Is that too subtle a concept for most? Probably. Would the ad catch some heat? No doubt. Would they get people talking about the History Channel? Damn straight. Would they loose the few viewers they already have? Probably not. Something tells me the redstates and free republic crowd don't spend much time with the History Channel.
(Third one’s British.)
Not British. Coalition of the Willing. ;-) Tony Blair made them a wholly-owned subsidiary of ours. They're Ogilvy to our WPP.
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