Atomic 212 wins at Campaign Asia awards despite furore, as New York Festivals refutes Agency of the Year claim
Media agency Atomic 212 last night picked up four Campaign Asia awards just a week after Mumbrella revealed how the agency submitted a series of exaggerated claims in previous award entries.
The accolades came as further questions emerged over the agency’s claims, with New York Festivals, a major advertising and marketing show in the US, rejecting Atomic’s boasts that it won their top Agency of the Year award last year. The agency also wrongly claimed in its recent winning B&T Awards entry to be Mumbrella’s 2016 agency of the year.
At the Campaign Asia Awards last night, held in Singapore, the media agency won the digital, independent and social media categories, and also picked up new business development team of the year, a category in which it was the only finalist. The winning entry submissions are not publicly available.
Atomic was also runner up to UM as Australia Media Agency of the Year.
But chief executive Jason Dooris did not retain his crown as Australia/NZ Agency Head of the Year, an award he won in 2016 with a submission in which he made numerous exaggerated claims of “all media” wins of major blue chip companies.
Dooris pictured presenting at this year’s Mumbrella Asia Awards
Jaimes Leggett, group CEO of M&C Saatchi, won the agency head of the year award.
Campaign Asia has failed to respond to numerous requests for comment over its apparent decision to honour the 2016 awards.
A screenshot of part of Atomic 212’s recent entry into the B&T Awards
The awards came as New York Festivals told Mumbrella it had no record of Atomic being named Agency of the Year in 2016. In an entry to the recent B&T Awards, which has been viewed by Mumbrella, Atomic claimed an “awards grand slam” in 2016 including being named Agency of the Year at the prestigious New York event. Based on the entry, Atomic was named independent agency of the year at the B&T Awards a fortnight ago.
But organisers have told Mumbrella that while Atomic 212 was a finalist in 10 categories – all for its Lucy the Robot PR stunt – it did not win Agency of the Year.
According to records provided by New York Festivals, Y&R New Zealand was Asia Pacific’s agency of the year.
And it was also untrue for Atomic to state in the B&T entry that it was Mumbrella’s 2016 agency of the year. In fact this was won by by Cummins & Partners.
Mumbrella’s agency of the year is selected from individual winners of the creative agency of the year, media agency of the year and PR agency of the year, as the top award of the night. And while Atomic 212 won media agency of the year in 2016, Mumbrella did not select it for the top title, giving that to Cummins & Partners.
Cummins & Partners won Mumbrella’s 2016 agency of the year, not Atomic 212
The claim of being the AdNews agency of the year for 2016 also appears to be incorrect, with AdNews reporting at the time that The Monkeys was its agency of the year. On that occasion Atomic won in the media agency category, but did not take the top agency of the year accolade.
Meanwhile, CEO Magazine has failed to respond to numerous requests to unravel the mystery of a claim that Dooris oversaw a revenue jump of 1000%.
After being named runner-up as CEO of the Year in the magazine’s awards last month, a story on the publication’s website lauded Dooris for “a business model transformation” that generated “a phenomenal revenue increase of more than 1000%”.
Questioned by Mumbrella on the extraordinary claims, Dooris later said it should have read 100% and claimed it was a typo on the part of CEO Magazine. It was then altered from 1000% to 100% on the website.
But two Atomic documents seen by Mumbrella also claim revenue growth of 1000%. In addition, furious Atomic chairman Barry O’Brien suggested to Dooris in an email seen by Mumbrella that it was not a typo and that Dooris had called in a “massive favour” to get the figure changed.
this guys out of control
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It’s like an onion, the more you peel, the more you cry.
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Ask the agency if they are transparent with their fee’s – to client and to publisher / media. Also, don’t worry about whether they have won any awards. Simples.
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Mumbrella,
Who is paying you to troll these guys.
LOL
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This needs to make a) the mainstream media, b) every client’s Inbox, and, c) the courts. Imagine how the courts would treat, say, Volkswagen if they falsely claimed to be Car of the Year in half a dozen markets. They’d cop a huge fine and be made to publish disclaimers in every major newspaper.
To many cynics (not this one, of course) Dooris is just further confirmation that ours is a rogue industry. He has to go and very publicly. Keep at it.
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Love to see the winning entries? Especially the New Biz Development one with all those false claims of 1,000% revenue increase & the clients that now confirm they didn’t win eg. Telstra Health,Mazda,Foxtel,Nike,Coles, Amex,Red Rooster ,Westpac etc…
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This completely undermines the credibility of Campaign Asia Awards. Atomic 212 should have been disqualified based on the local findings of Mumbrella Australia. Very disappointing.
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After all the facts and evidence locally, this is a TOTAL FARCE.
Campaign Asia has lost face.
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Perhaps there needs to be a bigger due diligence filter at each publication as awards submissions come in. Given the importance placed on awards. Appears signing a disclaimer that all the information is correct isn’t working.
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Agency bullshit at its finest !
Thanks Atomic212 for making it so obvious.
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The problem seems to start and end at the Trade Media awards. Maybe it’s time to consolidate all industry awards under the peak bodies.
Less awards, less resource, more transparency and more value in winning.
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It’s interesting to see that even under this scrutiny they managed to win so many accolades for Campaign Asia. Makes you wonder? Perhaps it’s deserved and there is a lot of people out there eating sour apples
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These guys are ridulous. So much BS.
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This is an absolute disgrace. How can they continue to win when everyone knows their claims are complete bogus?!?
Time for Barry O’Brien to do the right thing and cancel all award submissions u til the agency has its house in order.
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Oh please. Move on! This is boring now! Old news and making Mumbrella look silly.
YAWN.
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There are too many silly categories including one for the team who enters agency of the year awards for the agency. Talk about a prize for everyone culture.
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when you can’t do SCAM… there is always SHAM.
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For a journalist this story is just the gift that keeps on giving.
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I note that Jason was not on hand to accept any of the awards….
Nothing says guilty like a no-show…
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The problem doesn’t start and end at Trade Medua awards. It starts and ends with agencies lying.
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Atomic212’s us d their awards to win clients business. It cost people their jobs. There’s nothing boring about that.
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I dare say the campaign asia awards were judged on BEFORE the mumbrella piece came out which was only last week
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Wait…. Jaimes Leggett won Agency Head of the Year?
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’nuff said.
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The journalistic/editorial teams at Haymarket Media Group (the largest independent media organization) are separate from the awards/events teams.
In case you don’t know, Haymarket operates 100+ publications and Campaign happens to be one of them. In the APAC region, Haymarket runs about a dozen publications and in the interest of resource optimization, some resources (such as awards/events teams) are shared among a single publication.
Mumbrella is the sole publication of Focal Attractions. It’s editorial/journalistic teams may have more free time on their hands, able to sit in during award jury sessions. As the editors and reporters of Campaign cover 100x more topics than Mumbrella, they don’t have that luxury of time.
Plus, Campaign’s journalistic/editorial teams (unlike Mumbrella) don’t focus their energy on attacking the competition. Campaign Magazine is to Mumbrella what a Lamborghini is to a tricycle – not competition in the slightest and unworthy of interest or attention.
Campaign’s award juries comprise of brand-side CMOs. They should have done their job and cross-questioned every claim. They should invest their time and energy in asking the hard questions. They should spend less time staying quiet in the interest of appearing to comprehend everything presented.
Campaign’s awards/events teams should place greater scrutiny on the CMOs selected for the award juries. Just because someone is a big name doesn’t mean they have the ability to cross-question and analyze claims.
There is blame to be had and its the fault of the CMOs assigned as jury members. The editorial/journalistic teams had 0% to do with this – as it should be – to distance church and state (advertising and editorial).
(Edited by Mumbrella for legal reasons).
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After incurring cosmic losses at their inaugural Mumbrella Asia event, this article comes out. Another in a string of articles by Mumbrella in attacking its competition, a beast it has failed to best for years.
The tricycle of trade press continues to try it’s very best to upset the Death Star that is Haymarket. How many more petty attacks will Focal invest in before trying to, I don’t know, build a value proposition for once?
Probably never. The TMZ of the trade press loves a good scoop, tabloid, and all that jazz.
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Thanks for your comment, Sahrish,
I think you’ll find that the Mumbrella team is quite busy too. However, when we put our name to an awards, we take responsibility for the structure of the system, for choosing the right jury and for giving them the tools to coming to a correct result. Simply blaming a jury for failing to spot they were being misled – and then failing to act upon it when being made aware after judging is also the responsibility of the organiser, I’d argue.
In some organisations that’s the editorial team, in others, it might be somebody else, but if a publication is to lend its editorial credibility to an awards that goes as far as making all reasonable efforts to ensure a fair outcome.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Hi Sahrish,
Thanks for your comment. The investigation this article was based upon – https://mumbrella.com.au/jason-dooris-atomic-212-awards-investigation-488716 – was commissioned long before Mumbrella360 took place in Singapore.
Those who blew the whistle to us have no interest in any (perceived) rivalry between ourselves and Campaign Asia. They’re angry that they have lost a chance to win an award because of incorrect claims by a rival which have not been corrected.
And you say “loves a good scoop” like it’s a bad thing. I think that may sum up our differing points of view.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Dear Sahrish,
There is only one culprit in this story – the agency who used false information to support their award entries.
It’s the responsibility of agencies to tell the truth when entering awards, not the role of awards juries, no matter how well-credentialed, to question every entry to confirm their validity.
To suggest otherwise does you and the publications you represent no credit.
One can only conclude your moral compass points in a different direction to the rest of us.
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Tell that to the procurement heads that have been making their bonus by driving fees down. I’ve been in situations where 100% full transparency has been met with “we won’t be able to get that through procurement so let’s agree to a rack rate”
Until that side of the evaluation chain is honest with themselves we won’t have 100% transparency
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@Sahrish
Sahrish, I searched campaign Asia for a story on Atomic 212 and award issues by your editorial team. I couldn’t find anything. If they haven’t touched it can you tell us why.
Thanks
Donkey
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What an incredibly churlish comment which reflects poorly on you and your publications.
The issue here is simple.
It’s not about the quality of award judges, it’s about the integrity of the award entrants.
Agencies who lie in their award entries and prosper from that deception [at the expense of their peers] are solely responsible for [and deserving of] whatever comes their way.
If you believe otherwise, then you moral compass is either missing.
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This almost leads to the question are awards worth entering. It is the currency of how agencies define their success and is integral for reputation in new business. The counter balance though is that if they are truly not independent and the entries are not verified then the actual awards are worthless. Awards cost real sums of money and they take a real human effort.
I’m sure that as a money spinner for the publishers they won’t want the industry pulling out on mass. To make sure they don’t they need to fix the process.
How the publishers or the judges could have actually believed the claims that have surfaced in this investigation is astounding. A simple fact check via Google on a few claims would have revealed the absolute fantasy claimed by Atomic 212.
Its time for a serious awards overhaul to reinstate industry confidence and its time for Atomic 212 to implode which I’m sure is occurring faster than we know.
Shame on Campaign Asia too for still awarding these used car dealers of the advertising industry any recognition in the face of this scandal.
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@Sahrish Are you for real?
This isnt a pop at Campaign Asia. Mumbrella have exposed fraud and you seem to be suggesting that it is a pop at Campaign Asia..? Bizarre?
As for Haymarket. I knew / know a lot of good folks who worked across a variety of their publications, all around the world. Great people. Mumbrella isnt attacking any people at Haymarket, other than pointing out that Campaign Asia have still honoured awards to Atomic, after the revelations were published by Mumbrella….
A request Sahrish: Are ou able to reveal how Atomic won the award with Campaign Asia and whether any of the clients reported to be Atomic’s clients are actually their clients?
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I loved Atomic’s iconic local work………Cmon Aussie Cmon for World Series Cricket, NRMA’s Happy Joe Happy, Paul Hogan’s Winfield campaigns, Yellow Pages Not Happy Jan, even how they created Rhonda and Katut and Dumb Ways To Die.
They certainly deserve the 33000 awards they claim they win just in August. Sour Grapes methinks Dr Mumbo.
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Brilliant findings Steve. This is necessary for those who are honest in the industry.
I know for a fact theres similar case in other agency. Let me know how i can contact u for info on this.
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Yes
Marketers please stop whingeing about media transparency in 2018 if you can’t even implement a transparent media budget.
Drives me nuts!
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lololol Advertising people in misleading information shock!
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