Hair-care brand suing Ikon for ‘failed’ campaign believed it was going to be a ‘smash’, court told
The general manager of a hair product brand which is suing Ikon for a failed marketing campaign was in raptures about the creative of a TVC, predicting it was going to be a “smash”, a court has heard.
Emails from Advangen GM Emma Chen to Ikon executive creative director Rob Martin Murphy showed she was “completely on board and supportive of the creative approach”, Ikon counsel, Todd Alexis SC said.
The evidence emerged during the second day of a legal battle where Ikon is suing Advangen for unpaid invoices, while its former client is counter suing amid claims the agency was responsible for a sub-standard and ramshackle marketing campaign.
I actually laughed out loud at this:
“Halasz told the court that she did not object when she first saw it because it was shown in the Ikon offices where there was clapping and a celebratory atmosphere.”
If I was a board member I’d be worrying about what else she’s let slide to not kill the mood in the room.
Thank you for this article, it’s given me the confidence to proceed with litigation against my agency who only delivered a 0.07% CTR on my last campaign.
Sequential liability will probably mean the Agency then sues the DSP who uses the Publisher who sues the SSP who gives a crack at the Adseever. All of the intermediaries above are Google so simpler that it sounds.
CMO
CTR is an irrelevant metric?
This is sooo interesting.
Ikon are or at least were, a media agency trying (badly it would seem on this occasion) to do more creative work.
But does a client have the right to sue for shoddy workmanship?
At the very least this could make agencies more accountable for what they say they can do.
I would not have this type of client in my patch. I’ve worked for clients who don’t pay their agency team respect. It’s bad news for everyone
I would not have this type of client in my agency team. I’ve worked for clients who don’t pay their agency respect. It’s bad news for everyone
I started reading this sorry saga thinking ”here we go, another example of a media agency over promising and under delivering’. But now I’ve read the whole thing, the issue is actually a naive client, who, it seems, wanted as little involvement as possible & is now blaming their media agency for their own shortcomings. No campaign should be a failure, but also, not every campaign wlll be a runaway success. News flash to client – most campaigns will achieve their KPIs without being a “runaway smash” as you claim.
Just pay your f***ing bills already. How did something like this ever make it as far as court?
Huge earned media tho. Ikon should be billing them for their guerilla campaign reaching all the balding ad execs reading this
the actual spot reminds me of the the famous Simpson “snow globe” Mr.Plow TV ad…
surely hard to prove ‘duty of care’ I wonder if this is simply a PR litigation??
Why did this end up in court? The only people who’ll gain anything from this sorry saga (as is so often the case) is the lawyers. If I had my time again…
Yes the ad’s rubbish but that’s the shared fault of everyone involved, client services, creative, production (actually probably not production. They’ve polished this turd up as well as they could), media but also client at all levels who approved original agency contract, marketing and advertising briefs, storyboard, production estimate, media plan, finished ad., everything.
Just pay the bill and in future have a proper advertising strategy executed by an experienced creative agency under supervision of a capable marketing team.
The idea behind this as a test case is flawed – the agency could only be responsible for a campaign if the client failed to do their job.