Carrspace boss denies agency is in hiding after Woolworths Anzac Day campaign backlash
A director of the agency behind the ‘Fresh in our memories’ Woolworths Anzac Day campaign has denied it has been in hiding, saying it shut down its Twitter account “to prevent upsetting” staff with trolling and abusive posts.
Melbourne-based experiential agency Carrspace’s website is now back up after suffering “bandwidth issues” due to an increase in traffic to it, while the agency’s Twitter account has been restored after being pulled down amid a social media backlash to the campaign kicked off on Tuesday evening.
“We are not in hiding,” Carrspace director and executive producer Madeleine Preece told Mumbrella, adding the website was not taken down by the agency, and that the Twitter account had only been down for a “short period of time”.
“As director I made the decision to close that to prevent upsetting my team that I love and trust and value,” she added. “As soon as we had clarity on our position with Woolworths we re-opened that account and communicated how they requested we communicate.
Preece
“It was only pulled down while we pulled together the communications strategy.”
While Woolworths has refused to confirm which agency was involved in the campaign, Carrspace announced in March it had been appointed to the supermarket’s agency roster to work on the Camp Gallipoli activations.
Preece said the agency has been responding to phone calls and emails from the public and would continue to do so until the enquiries cease.
However she said she was unable to answer specific enquires around the campaign as the agency has been asked to direct them to the Woolworths media line.
“We’re trying to maintain all our relationships with all our clients and respect their communication wishes,” she added.
Carrspace clients include L’Oreal, Bentley, Renault and Puma.
Marketing experts have said the campaign generated such a huge public backlash because it aligned its brand far too closely to the memories of Anzac war heroes.
Miranda Ward
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
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I guess they got the ‘experience’ this time.
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You can all imagine the meeting that was held internally when this shameful idea among other ideas would have been reviewed to decide which ideas would be presented to Woolworths.
At that time the person within Carrspace making the final decision had an opportunity to remove this idea on the basis of it being dis-tasteful. It is that person’s responsibility alone to filter out any ideas that may not be appropriate to go to the client.
Why is Carrspace not taking any responsibility over its duty of care responsibilities on behalf of their client.
Another agency a few years back was found to be at fault over a campaign for a health fund where the terms and conditions for pregnant women claiming cover after they were pregnant were not clear in the campaign. This resulted in the client receiving enormous flack from consumers that damaged the consumers trust in the brand.
The finding was that the agency was neglectful in its responsibilities. Although the client had approved the work, it was the role of the agency as an appointed guardian of the client’s brand to ensure that none of the agency’s actions resulted in any damage to the brand. The agency was found guilty.
I was in a Woolworths supermarket this morning where the manager of the store was copping abuse from customers. This will cost Woolworths a fortune. All of this mess could have been prevented by one person having the guts to make a decision that was respectful of Anzac and clearly showed that they have a duty of care for their client’s brand.
Its time for an open and honest apology from Carrspace.
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Hey tony, i hope your comment was dripping with sarcasm because if not it shows a real lack of a working knowledge within an agency / client relationship. i have not got the faintest idea (nor i would suggest do you) how this work got signed off it is never as simple as agency comes up with idea client signs off. The client could have been very explicit in the instructions, the client could have requested that the connection with ‘fresh’ be dialed up, the client could have come up with the idea, the client could have asked for something more obvious etc etc etc.
What I do know, an agency frequently gets railroaded into signing very detailed and onerous contracts, where all the power resides with the client (money / prestige etc) within the contract there could be some very very specific clauses about responsibility for any losses incurred due to work created by the agency (direct and non-direct and consequential losses). if the poor agency had entered into such a contract and woolworths decide to pursue them and if they did not take out Professional Liability insurance (very expensive) the consequences could be dramatic (direct cost to woolworths for replacing out material but also any loss of profits or reputational damage).
The outrage and fury shown seems completely disproportional.
So lets not stomp on the agency, it’s a tough business and the worst they have done is shown poor judgment.
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Tony’s right in that this should have been killed by Carrspace – but well before the client ever got wind of it as a possible idea. I’m surprised it ever got past first thoughts.
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“it was the role of the agency as an appointed guardian of the client’s brand to ensure that none of the agency’s actions resulted in any damage to the brand”
Tony have you ever worked in an agency before?
What I am amazed about is that none of the clients, even at a large company which is commonly the target of angry consumers, was able to see this coming…
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@ don’t get it – you are 100% correct.
I work for a major brand client side, but formerly worked for ad agencies. I have never heard an agency suggest that “the logo needs to be larger” or “we need to strengthen the connection with our brand, so how about we use ‘fresh’ in there”.
@ Tony – if a large brand delegates responsibility of being “brand guardian” to a small experiential agency, then they deserve all of the f#@k ups that will inevitably follow. CMOs and Marketing Directors are payed a ton of money for exactly that purpose.
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@don’t get it.
“The client could have been very explicit in the instructions, the client could have requested that the connection with ‘fresh’ be dialed up, the client could have come up with the idea”
Exacty right. Some years ago I worked on Woolies and all of the above is possible. They were always telling us what ideas we were going to run with – their arrogance was something you had to experience.
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Although I agree with the outcry on this extremely clumsy example, I hope this doesn’t dampen corporates fairly recently found appetite to support good causes.
Searching for a postive note, at least this campaign drowned out Cheap Cheap for a few days.
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@Rushdie – I completely agree- this is clearly a woollies brain fart and the agency is now expected to wear the brunt of criticism and financial restitution . Their arrogance and lack of understanding knows no bounds!
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Omg,havent any of you people watched MAD MEN,
Don Draper would have turned this one around easy !! ,lol
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At least they can’t be accused of the ‘Cheap Cheap’ campaign. Can they? There ought to be arrests made over that one!
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