GPY&R shuns MADC Awards on ‘cost’ grounds a year after scam row
One of the best known ad agencies in Melbourne has chosen not to enter the city’s main advertising awards.
GPY&R Melbourne, which last year won 29 awards, insists that the reason for pulling out of the Melbourne Advertising and Design Club Awards was based on cost, rather than because of a dispute last year over two of its entries – one of which MADC determined was scam. The decision was hotly contested by the agency at the time.
Patts Melbourne’s ECD Ben Coulson told Mumbrella that his agency did not enter because he wanted to spend the budget on awards that count towards Gunn Report rankings – and because of a tighter awards budget for this financial year.
“The MADC Awards are a nice local show, and a good party for our staff. But, with a smaller budget to spend on awards this year, we decided to go for awards that count towards our standing in international creative rankings,” he said.
Last year, MADC ruled out a Patts entry for a cake mix product made by Clucky on the grounds that there was insufficent evidence that the client existed at the time of entry.
“It was a legitimate entry, albeit for a small, pro bono client,” said Coulson, who conceded that Clucky was run by a former employee of Patts. “It was perfectly reasonable of MADC to ask questions about it. But the fact is that it was a genuine campaign for a real client, and we busted ass to produce some great work for it.”
Coulson added that MADC Awards is the toughest show he has ever entered in terms of the level scrutiny entries get over their legitimacy.
GPY&R was also involved in a dispute over an entry for Cadbury’s Boost, which the MADC initially ruled fell outside of the eligibility period. The campaign was later allowed to stand, and won a number of awards.
http://youtu.be/9vXtmb5Nmis
Patts enjoyed its best year yet at MADC awards last year, winning 29 awards and getting 48 finalists.
MADC manager Nichola Patterson, who is also PR director of Clemenger BBDO Melbourne, said: “We’re very disappointed that Patts didn’t enter. They are an important part of Melbourne ad scene.”
The MADC Awards cost $185 for a single entry and $325 for a campaign. The cost has fallen this year as a result of a reduction in the cost of MADC membership.
In June, MADC reduced its membership fees and revamped its website to make it easier for agencies to enter its awards. In July, MADC extended its deadline by a week to August 5 to give agencies more time to enter.
According to MADC, awards entries are up this year despite GPY&R’s no-show.
Or maybe they’ve just nothing worth entering?
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What’s the fuss…create ads for awards and pay to run them…big deal…win an ward…so what!
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Bullshit.
They’re just sticking it up the MADC.
Highly unlikely they couldn’t have scrounged up a few grand to enter their best couple dozen pieces of work.
But it’s a clever justification for dummy spitting. By linking it to Gunn Report rankings, they’re just sticking the knife in, reminding the MADC of their provincial status.
But hey, it’s their money. They’re free to spend it how they want. Although we’ll only know if they’re being honest about their reasons if they also enter nothing in the Caxtons and other shows highly unlikely to factor into Gunn calculations.
I doubt it.
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I thought Melbourne was a proper city. Why do they have these provincial-style awards events? Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth all have them. They need them because they can’t always compete with the big boys. Maybe Melbourne is not quite…
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Having heard the whole story from someone very close to it, I can say that something appallingly fishy went on last year. And the smell emanated from St Kilda Rd.
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After reading the above article I feel an important point was omitted.
I want to make it perfectly clear that the work produced for Clucky Cake mixes was absolutely not scam. The client sells the cake mixes in a number of supermarkets and online through their web site.
http://www.cluckystore.com/cat.....vings.aspx
Clucky is a small but successful business with a great range of products. It has been operating since 2005. One of the founders of the company was a former employee of GPY&R. Their success is a great case study.
All requested information about the client was submitted to the organizers of MADC, including the phone number of the client. They were never contacted by MADC.
My reputation, and that of GPY&R, are very important to me. We have never, and will never, enter any creative work into an award show that does not meet the show’s criteria.
I have worked in the business for 18 years and have been the ECD of GPY&R for the past five. To have my name, and that of my company associated with scamming is an affront to all the people in this agency who work so hard for our clients.
Simply put: we didn’t enter MADC this year because we are spending our budget on other award shows.
Ben Coulson
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Sounds like MADC has a bigger case to answer than Patts. Shame to see them drop out, it certainly lessens the credibility of winners this year.
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Maybe the ads just got chucked out because they’re not very good? I haven’t seen them win anything in Cannes or D&AD, so the argument really does not stack up.
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And that as they say is that . . .
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To be very clear, Clucky Cravings is a registered business, we were foundered in 2008. George Patterson have been our agency since then and have created terrific work including the packaging design for the Cravings range. We are very happy with all the campaigns they have produced.
I am however, not happy at all to see my brand represented next to the word scam when I know that not to be true.
And I would like to see a retraction or correction from Mumbrella as well an appology.
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Conspiracy theorists abound, but this is just a smoke screen for having no work. Everyone knows what work they have, because if anything was strong, it would have already won at Cannes. If Burst was around are you telling me they wouldn’t have put it in to MADC? I don’t think so.
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Interesting…..
The manager of MADC is also the flack for Clems.
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Kinda like Bathurst without Holden.
Bit of a dampener on the night
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The St George bank didn’t accept our ad and had it taken off youtube 🙁
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Coulson’s reasoning is off.
I reckon if I were PattsY&R, I’d have a real problem with the admin of the MADC being done by Clems’ PR Director. There’s a clear conflict of interest there.
This is a real shame. I agree with Brocky, it’s like Bathurst without Holden.
But do any smart clients really care what Donald Gunn decides as the global rankings of creativity?
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Hi Luisa,
Thanks for your comments.
We are accurately reporting the decision made by the MADC. Scam was the word used by their spokesperson to us.
You may well feel that was an unfair decision by the MADC, but nonetheless that was the decision they made and that we have reported – along with GPY&R’s comments on the issue.
Cheers,
Tim Burrowes – Mumbrella
Course, it all depends on your definition of scam.
To some people, it’s scam if you just invented the whole thing, and the client wasn’t even aware of it. Never briefed, never approved, maybe never even ran. This is rare, but as Cannes showed this year, it still happens.
To others, it’s scam if the client doesn’t pay for the work, or they pay a tiny percentage of the true cost, and the sole reason the agency is doing it is so they can pick up some metal. This is pretty common.
But we all know that real work, work that came out of real briefs from proper paying clients, which is good enough to win awards… well, that’s the work that is genuinely worth praise.
And GPY&R Melbourne certainly has no shortage of that kind of stuff. That’s why they’re so highly regarded: they’ve done great work on proper clients like the defence forces, fmcg brands, etc.
Award-winning work on big clients should always represent the hallmark of excellence in our industry.
But campaigns for cottage businesses run by ex-staffers, with a radical over-investment in time and money from the agency, aren’t really anything to get too excited about.
We all do them, but they’re really nothing more than giving the creative department a chance to have some fun (you tend not to get a lot of client interference) and maybe pick up an award or two. It’s good from time to time to let you people really let loose. Helps hone the skills you then bring to paying jobs.
Is it scam? Like I say, depends on your definition. For me, sure it’s scammy. In all likelihood it was done for no or almost no payment, for the sole purpose of having a bit of fun and winning some awards. But so what? Award shows are full of them.
To you, it may not be scam. We all have our own definitions. But the campaign in question was also within the MADC’s guidelines (as I understand them) so I can understand why GPYR were so pissed off when they were vetoed. They did nothing more heinous than anyone else who’s ever done proactive work for a client who really couldn’t afford it.
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