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.
Among Advangen’s complaints surround TV ads produced by Ikon which it argues were too “arty” and completely missed the point of the hair thinning remedy product they were promoting. Sales as a result were dismal, Advangen has claimed.
On the second morning of a hearing at Sydney’s Supreme Court, Alexis again quizzed Maria Halasz, chief executive of Advangen parent Cellmid, about the campaign for Evolis.
Put to her that her general manager had backed Ikon’s creative approach – Chen predicted it would be a “smash creatively” – Halasz agreed.
Rob Martin Murphy oversaw the creative for the Advangen Evolis campaign
“I was happy with what Emma [Chen] was saying to me, but I had no expertise, I was leaving it to her,” Halasz told the court.
She agreed that by letting her GM take control, she had effectively given approval for the ad.
“But I had not seen it,” she added.
“You were content to leave the decisions to your GM?”
“I was,” Halasz confirmed.
Even after seeing the TV ads for the first time and going to air, Alexis suggested to Halasz that she did not object to the content or articulate her fears that it was to be shown in the wrong spots in the wrong TV programs and only on one free-to-air channel.
“No I didn’t,” she said.
Halasz told the court that she did not object on first viewing because it was shown in the Ikon offices where there was clapping and a celebratory atmosphere.
“I did not feel it was appropriate to mention it in that environment,” Halasz said. “I watched it subsequent times and I was very unhappy with it, but I didn’t feel qualified to say that.”
She added she was not an advertising expert and “didn’t even watch television”. She told the hearing she was comforted by Ikon “who thought it was going to work great”.
“I didn’t feel it was my place to object. At some point you have to trust the people you hire.”
Alexis rejected Halasz’s claims in her written evidence that she formed highly critical views of the ad when she first saw it, suggesting she only began criticising the TVC once Ikon began pursuing Advangen for unpaid bills and pressure mounted from disgruntled shareholders unhappy with the ads.
He said the only issue initially raised with Ikon creative Rob Martin Murphy appeared to concern the voice over on the commercial which Halasz regarded as too quiet.
Halasz rejected the assertions.
Maria Halasz
Turning to sales of the Evolis product after the campaign kicked off on August 30, Alexis painted a picture of confusion and contradictions at Advangen, with Halasz on one hand saying sales had fallen, but with GM Emma Chen telling Ikon’s then communications director Elyse Foley that sales were going well.
Alexis produced two emails from Foley telling Chen and Advangen sales director Evan Rees that it was “good to hear sales are going well”,
“That contradicts your evidence that sales has not increased,” he said.
Halasz stood by her evidence despite accepting that the emails contradicted her own statements.
Alexis also produced sales figures provided by Advangen national sales manager Mr Hatter which showed sales through API, a wholesaler providing Evolis products for pharmacy retailer Priceline, dipped slightly in September but climbed 51% in October.
Halasz said the figures proved that sales had dropped in September.
The court heard that shareholders who had seen the TV ads were unhappy, putting Halasz under pressure.
“You had some explaining to do,” Alexis said.
It also emerged during proceedings that Halasz had written off the campaign after less than three weeks and saw little point in continuing despite being urged by Ikon to give it time.
Alexis also noted that despite cancelling the TV ads in October, Advangen gave approval for Ikon to enter the ads into awards.
“So you were very unhappy with the ads and what it conveyed in relation to your product but you were entirely content to have the TV commercial entered into industry awards?” he asked.
Halasz said it had nothing to do with Advangen before accepting she had given her blessing.
The Cellmid boss claimed Ikon staff admitted, in October, that the campaign had been disappointing, an allegation rejected by Alexis who argued they had said nothing of the sort.
During four hours of questioning, the barrister also referred Halasz to an ASX announcement in late October in which she, in her position as CEO of Cellmid, told the market that following the commencement of a national advertising campaign “early indicators show that brand awareness and sales are increasing” of the Evolis product.
Such comments were at odds with her evidence that sales in late September, October and November had not improved, Alexis said.
“The two don’t sit happily together do they?”, he asked. “Either what you told the market is true and your evidence is false or what you said in evidence is true and what you told the market is false. Which is it?”
Halasz explained that by the end of October it saw a small increase of web sales “which is why I used the words early indicators because we saw there might be a sales uptick”.
“We didn’t see any sales increase throughout September and early October so my evidence was entirely correct,” she told the court.
Alexis also tackled Halasz on her allegations that Ikon had engaged in dishonest conduct over a billing error, describing them as “baseless”.
Earlier, the Ikon counsel drew attention to Advangen’s sales force which it had contracted through Farmaforce in September to work closely with pharmacies. He told the court the on-the-ground sales staff did not start in earnest until late October, several weeks after the Evolis marketing campaign started.
Halasz agreed there was a “disconnect” between the campaign start date and having the sales team in place.
The hearing continues.
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.”
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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CTR is an irrelevant metric?
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Just pay your f***ing bills already. How did something like this ever make it as far as court?
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Huge earned media tho. Ikon should be billing them for their guerilla campaign reaching all the balding ad execs reading this
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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??
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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.
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