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Revealed: The major exaggerations behind media agency Atomic 212’s many award wins
Following a three-month investigation into multi-award winning communications agency Atomic 212, Mumbrella's Steve Jones has uncovered a series of highly questionable claims made by CEO Jason Dooris.
The boss of media agency Atomic 212 has exaggerated work it has carried out for clients in industry award entries, claimed inflated billings, and suggesting rivals lost competitive pitches that did not even take place, an investigation by Mumbrella has discovered.
Chief executive and major shareholder of Atomic 212, Jason Dooris claimed his agency beat rivals in competitive pitches to secure extensive pieces of work for highly-prized blue-chip companies. Some of the claims have been made in entries that helped Atomic, and Dooris individually, win awards.
But the reality is far different, it has emerged.
Far from winning a number of “all media” contracts with key brands as he claimed – some supposedly for three years after competitive pitches – Atomic carried out project work, some of which had been outsourced to it by other agencies. Westpac, Alibaba and Coles are among those listed as clients where the true remit of the work is unrecognisable from information presented to award juries.
In a lengthy face-to-face interview with Mumbrella last week, Dooris gave an often confused denial of any wrong doing. He insisted there had been no deliberate intention to mislead juries to win awards, but acknowledged claims could have been more clearly articulated.
After the evidence was put before Dooris, he asked to be given until this coming Friday to offer additional information, which Mumbrella agreed to. Today Dooris issued a pre-emptive statement to other media industry titles claiming he had done nothing wrong.
However, other senior executives within the agency are concerned and “have a problem” with the way information has been presented by Dooris. There is acknowledgement – and fear – that it could reflect negatively on the reputation of the entire agency.
Mumbrella understands chairman Barry O’Brien, and co-founder and chief operating officer James Dixon, have clashed with Dooris over the manner of his leadership and ethics.
O’Brien, who sat in on the interview between Mumbrella and Dooris, conceded of the claims made in entries: “I am seeing a stretch. If I am a competitor or judge then I am seeing a stretch. We do have records here of relationships… but it’s pushed to a level where it’s got to be a concern. Have we learned from this? Dramatically.”
In one submission obtained by Mumbrella for Campaign Asia’s 2016 Agency Head of the Year award – which Dooris won – he claims Atomic successfully bid for a three-year all-media contract with Nike/Hurley following a competitive pitch in which the “losers” were named as GroupM agency Mindshare – Nike’s global media agency.
It also claimed a 12-month “all media” win for Westpac Bank after fending off MediaCom in a competitive pitch and came out top in another head-to-head, this time against Dentsu, for Alibaba. That win apparently earned Atomic a two-year all media contract with the online retailer.
All three were won “locally and independently” with “no alignment”, the award entry states.
But Atomic did not win any extensive all media business for such large, prestigious and coveted accounts.
It has left some brands perplexed and their agencies furious at the insinuation they have lost the business of such highly-valued clients.
The long-running Campaign Asia Awards are organised by Haymarket Media’s Hong Kong-based Campaign Asia magazine, and accept entries from across the region.
A management endorsement of the Campaign Asia entry, which warns false and untrue information could lead to disqualification, was signed by Dooris.
Also under scrutiny are several claims made under a “client retention” section in the same Campaign Asia submission. Atomic said it carried out strategy, content, planning and buying across all media for Coles, with the “win” worth $7m. The “losers” were named as Universal McCann and OMD. Omnicom-owned OMD won Coles from UM in mid 2016.
Westpac Bank also appears in the retained client list with $11m worth of strategy, content, planning, buying across digital, with MediaCom named as the “loser”.
Other claims in Dooris’ entry include a $4.2m piece of business with Mazda Australia, and a $2m contract with American Express for digital media and CRM. Both Mazda Australia and Amex told Mumbrella they have no record of working with the agency.
Ironically, under a heading “Why should Jason be Agency Head of the Year 2016”, the entry details the challenges facing media agencies including “questionable ethics and transparency within the category”.
Other claims contained in the entry include a revenue increase in the year to September 2016 of 230% and a 281% rise in billings.
While there is nothing to suggest those figures are artificially inflated, more recent figures in award entries claim he has overseen a staggering revenue increase of more than 1000%.
That figure emerged after CEO Magazine named Dooris as runner-up to SBS boss Michael Ebeid as CEO of the Year. A story on CEO Magazine’s website lauded Dooris for “a business model transformation” that generated “a phenomenal revenue increase of more than 1000%”.
Dooris has since tried to pass that off as a typo on the part of the publication. After Mumbrella raised the question with Dooris, CEO Magazine has this week altered the figure online to 100%. But two documents seen by Mumbrella, including the entry, claim revenue growth of 1000%.
The revelations of highly-exaggerated claims will inevitably throw doubt over the legitimacy of some of Atomic’s many award successes since launching in 2014.
Dooris pictured presenting at this year’s Mumbrella Asia Awards judging in Singapore
More widely, it once again raises serious concerns over the integrity of awards and calls into question whether the due diligence of claims made in entries is sufficiently rigorous. The Cannes Lions has for years been plagued with scam entries, with organisers seemingly turning a blind eye to some suspicious submissions.
Questions over the veracity of some of Atomic’s claims began to surface as early as March this year shortly after trade title AdNews announced its 2017 Agency of the Year winners. Atomic won five categories including Media Agency of the Year, Independent Agency of the Year and Media Network of the Year.
In a post-award publication celebrating the award winners – and outlining the reasons for the judges’ decisions – a list of Atomic’s “newer clients” included Westpac, Audi, Coles and Telstra.
The list was questioned by rivals which have relationships with those brands, with agency bosses raising objections directly with AdNews. But their immediate concerns that the publication of such claims were grossly misleading appear to have been largely ignored by AdNews.
Mumbrella has seen an email exchange between OMD CEO Aimee Buchanan and AdNews editor Rosie Baker in which the irregularities were raised.
The complaint from OMD to AdNews did not lead to any change in the result
While there is fierce competition among agencies, and often no love lost between groups, it is rare for agencies to become so riled by a competitor.
Baker responded a few days later to say it was “not a simple matter” and that she would review the terms and conditions for the future, but did not address the incorrect claims in the winning entry.
Two days ago, as word of Mumbrella’s investigation began to circulate more widely, AdNews belatedly announced new criteria for its next awards. Today AdNews said it was “satisfied” Atomic’s entries for 2016 met its previous criteria.
Atomic, and Dooris in particular, believe the complaints stem from jealous rivals who are worried about their future and threatened by the emergence of an agency which has received countless accolades. Atomic describes itself as an Agile Creative Media Agency which is shaking up the sector.
Competitors on the other hand say they have simply had enough of what they regard as a relentless crusade to undermine their businesses and claim accounts which border on the fictional.
In addition to being impressed with Atomic’s list of juggernaut clients, jurors of the AdNews awards heaped praise on a test drive campaign for Mazda carried out by Path 51 – a tech platform born in Atomic’s Sydney offices in 2016 and which, according to a heads of agreement seen by Mumbrella, is 45% owned by the agency.
It later transpired the Mazda campaign, which helped Atomic win its glut of AdNews awards, was an activation for Mazda Spain with no local involvement. Work had been carried out by Path 51’s Madrid-based tech team.
The issues resurfaced during Mumbrella’s own awards live judging in May when jurors were alerted to the Mazda issues shortly before Dooris presented to them.
Dooris answered tough questions from Mumbrella Awards jurors in Sydney in May
After they quizzed Dooris in detail, the jurors drew their own conclusions. On the day, one Mumbrella Awards jury held a vote on whether the entry should be disqualified, with the entry narrowly surviving disqualification by four votes to three. Atomic did not win in any categories.
Mazda Australia dismissed Dooris’ claims that it held a $4.2m local account with the firm, confirming to Mumbrella it was “100% not true”.
“We have never worked with Atomic or Path 51 locally,” the car brand said.
One experienced marketer who judged a recent Atomic entry said it became clear not all was as it seemed.
“It was full of smoke and mirrors. It was gilding the lily on a massive scale. Suffice to say that all us who came through that felt a little bit dirtier at the end.”
Atomic 212 said it “put its hands up” to the Mazda Spain issue during the Mumbrella Awards process, but it is unclear if the AdNews jury were aware it was non-Australian work.
Dooris also admitted the inclusion of Mazda Australia as client in the Campaign Asia entry submission was wrong, but said it was simply an error.
“We have not done anything with them locally, that should say Spain,” Dooris said. “That is obviously an error.”
AMERICAN EXPRESS
Even though admitting it had no direct relationship with American Express – confirmed by Amex which said Atomic was not on its roster of agencies – Dooris listed the global financial behemoth as a retained client in the Campaign Asia entry, saying it carried out $2m worth of digital media and CRM work.
As with all the claims, Dooris said in the award entry it won Amex “locally and independently” with “no alignment”.
Dooris claimed to Mumbrella that email marketing agency Brandmail – which Atomic bought in 2016 – was outsourced some work by another agency which was on Amex’s roster. He claimed that naming the agency could put its relationship with Amex in jeopardy.
Dooris said he saw nothing wrong with naming Amex as a client despite its absence from any roster and with work outsourced to it by another agency.
“It depends how you define a client,” he told Mumbrella. “We think about the brand that we are ultimately doing advertising work for. That is the brand we are going to showcase and it feels completely reasonable to share that in an awards program that is looking to identify good work.”
Asked if he had a problem with claiming a client that the agency did not work with directly, O’Brien said: “I have got a problem with it, yes. If someone was doing that to us, you would see a different side of me. But having said that we have done work with these clients.”
COLES
Dooris defended the claim that it carried out strategy, content, planning and buying across all media for Coles during the 2015/16 judging period. But he conceded, in hindsight, he was “not happy” with the way it had been presented in the Campaign Asia entry.
Coles was also named as a client in the AdNews and Mumbrella award entries.
Dooris said Path 51 carried out “activity” with Coles while it was still with UM, which later lost the account to OMD in mid 2016. It is understood the work through UM for Coles was limited in its scope with sources describing it as a “trial in the early days”.
He added that another agency, Razorfish, which Publicis merged with SapientNitro last year to create SapientRazorfish, had outsourced work to Atomic. That, he explained, involved “tagging assistance for mobile and home” but added it was “unrelated to awards”.
He declined to reveal the date for the Razorfish work, claiming that revealing such information would compromise confidentiality and potentially damage the business.
Responding to observations the award submission bore no similarity to the work produced and was therefore grossly misleading, Dooris said the logic was that Path 51 had been “observing media across different channels”.
“Look, it’s definitely a point of reflection,” he said. “What that line represents in those awards is an assessment of total media that the technology has observed and drawn into its systems before it responds to delivering digital ads.
“This is a new area of technology and I am not sure how we would represent it in a way so that it’s reasonably viewed.
“But I am not happy [with the way it’s been articulated]. I am not happy because it’s clearly something that has not been understood in the marketplace. We have tried to define a way of representing marketing technology and it has not been understood. Going into this year we have already learned lessons. We talk about it differently or not at all.”
Asked about describing UM and OMD as “losers” for the Coles work, Dooris said there was an “assumption” that “every other agency has tech products and Coles were using our product over somebody else’s”.
The Atomic 212 team with Dooris centre front
WESTPAC
Dooris also defended the Westpac Bank claim that Atomic successfully won a 12-month all media contract and carried out strategy, content, planning and buying across digital on a retained basis.
Westpac was also listed as a “business win” in the 2016 Mumbrella Awards, named again in the 2017 awards and appeared as a “new client” in the AdNews Agency of the Year publication.
The reality is that Atomic carried out work for BT Super, part of Westpac-owned BT Financial Services, a far cry from the all media, planning and buying remit it had originally claimed for the bank.
“The brief was analysing, looking at driving conversions,” Dooris said of the BT Super work. “Part of the work was also building out their lower funnel and affiliate partnerships.”
Commenting on suggestions the work for BT Super was, again, completely unrecognisable from the list of disciplines it described for Westpac, and that the $11m was vastly over inflated, Dooris said: “It’s not a stretch against those services because those things physically happened. We have not bought $11m worth of media for them, so on reflection that could have been worded differently. We were trying to show the scale of the work we were involved in. It’s a martech brief, not a media planning and buying brief.”
Dooris said he was “not sure” why it did not list the client as BT Super, but argued it was part of the Westpac Group, so therefore valid.
“If you are feeling misled then it is misleading, but it certainly wasn’t the intention,” he said. “BT Super, BT Financial Services is a key part of Westpac and that is the way we would have considered it.”
He was unable to explain the absence of any record of a competitive pitch, despite the entry claiming it had beat MediaCom.
“I don’t know whether the activity was offered to another agency,” he said. “I assume so, but I can’t recall specifically.”
ALIBABA
Atomic’s link with Alibaba, named by Dooris as a new account after winning a “two-year all media” deal, appears remarkably tenuous, at best. Dooris explained Atomic did work with Gobi Partners for a fintech start-up called Airwallex. He described it as “Alibaba’s start-up business or something like that”.
Gobi Partners is, in fact, an independent Hong Kong based investment manager appointed by Alibaba to manage its venture capital fund. Airwallex, based in Melbourne, benefitted from $4m worth of funding.
Alibaba said in a statement: “As a multi-national business, Alibaba regularly engages a number of specialist creative and media agencies both on a project, freelance and retainer basis, to support across our many markets. At a Group level, Alibaba has not worked with Atomic 212 or Path 51 in the Asia-Pacific region. While we work closely with our subsidiaries, it is possible that Alibaba or a subsidiary has engaged with these agencies in another region in the past.”
Responding to the Gobi Partners link, the spokesperson added: “Gobi Partners is an entity independent of Alibaba Group. Gobi Partners was appointed in 2015 by Alibaba Group as its investment manager responsible for managing the Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund.”
NIKE/HURLEY
While Mindshare still holds the global media account for Nike, Dooris claimed in the Campaign Asia award submission that Atomic beat the GroupM agency to capture an all media deal for Nike/Hurley in 2015/16.
Nike and Hurley also appeared as clients in the most recent AdNews and Mumbrella awards.
Questioned about the claims, Dooris described Nike as “almost a foundation client” for Atomic with activations carried out for the sports brand “on and off” over a number of year, including for “Nike Football”.
In a vague and confusing defence of the three-year all media claim for Nike/Hurley, Dooris said he had, in fact, not been claiming all media for the “pure, core Nike business”.
Asked why he had listed Nike and whether he regarded the entry as grossly misleading, he said: “Not for Hurley. Perhaps people will not be as familiar with the Hurley brand, but it’s a reasonable point [to question the Nike inclusion].”
Yet Hurley said while it did engage Atomic on search marketing work until mid 2016, there had been nothing since. In addition, Nike Pacific said it “did not work with either Atomic 212 or Path 51”.
When put to him that Nike had no record of Atomic, Dooris said it may have billed Nike under a different name, possibly Atomic Digital Marketing.
Mumbrella has approached Nike for clarification.
Other brands which have rubbished claims made by Dooris include Audi, which appeared in award submissions for both the AdNews and Mumbrella awards.
The car firm said: “PHD is our media agency and we have not engaged the services of Atomic 212”.
Dooris said the inclusion of Audi had been a mistake and should have read VW, which is listed as a client of Path 51 on its website.
Despite the misleading claims, Atomic’s rise, often portrayed as meteoric as it scooped numerous awards, is not without merit.
It has landed key clients since launching in 2014, including Origin Energy, Mortgage Choice and part of Tabcorp, and in chairman Barry O’Brien has one of the most experienced and respected media executives in the business.
O’Brien: ‘Not the greatest day of my life’
But even he was undermined in the Campaign Asia award entry when Stuart Mitchell was, somewhat bizarrely, described as a “key hire” and listed as chairman.
Stuart Mitchell is the son of Harold Mitchell, Australia’s most successful media agency boss of all time. Stuart eventually became CEO of Mitchell Communications Group which is now part of Dentsu. He left the organisation in 2014.
In attempting to explain the claim, Dooris said Mitchell has worked for Atomic for 12 months as a consultant to the board and to O’Brien, and had chaired “a number of different engagements and scenarios and projects”.
“That is what that meant” Dooris told Mumbrella. “He did chair a number of working groups that were established around certain things in the business but he was not chairman of the entire group. Barry is absolutely the chairman of this business and always has been.”
O’Brien, who said he did not see the Campaign Asia award entry until alerted to its content by Mumbrella, described the listing of Mitchell as chairman as “probably not the greatest day of my life”.
“It’s a mistake,” he said. “Stuart had a year here as a consultant, but he was never chairman.”
Asked if anyone else in the agency had seen the Campaign Asia entry, Dooris said: “Yeah, there would have been some people involved in it, but I did see it, absolutely. I would have written parts of it, and I am responsible for it.”
GroupM said in a statement: “To be clear, GroupM agencies have never gone up against Atomic 212 in a competitive media pitch for Westpac, Nike, American Express or Foxtel, and to suggest as much is to blatantly stretch the truth. Our clients will confirm this fact.
“Being successful on a one-off SEO project or a short-term activation is not the same as winning the total media business and should not be presented as such.
“At GroupM we greatly value openness and to bend the truth – even if it’s not revealing all the facts – is a great disservice to the industry and undermines your own credibility.”
Dooris’ own job history also suggests inconsistencies. Dooris’ LinkedIn profile and Campaign Asia entry state he was boss of what was one of the UK’s biggest media agencies at the time, MediaCom, and deputy CEO of its European operation. In fact, he led sister digital agency MediaCom Interactive.
How Dooris portrayed his job experience in awards entry
From Dooris’ LinkedIn profile
Dooris told Mumbrella that MediaCom had a “number of different CEOs across the business” with his remit “exclusively in the digital space”.
Sickening. After 22 years in design, communications and advertising, I’m about to go on a serious 6-12 month hiatus from this industry and this story is just one of the highlights as to why…
We all need to take a good long hard look at ourselves!
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Tip of the iceberg for Australian Media agency award entries. Other media agencies play the same game. Out of date retention figures, ideas from creative agencies passed off as their own, staff happiness scores massaged by excluding offices to tell a different story, leaders claiming involvement of work they couldn’t have possibly been involved with etc etc. This needs a wider call out to other agency folk who have experienced this and a much bigger investigation by Mumbrella.
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Sitting at awards shows reading A212’s false entries that claimed clients I worked hard on and to help win was infuriating – and it happened time after time.
Having staff members read these claims and wonder if the account was going and why there was an agency they hadn’t heard of claiming their work.
Adnews were made aware of the false claims in 2016 and ignored these and printed them.
I sat on juries in SG and saw the lies from A212 spread regionally and it was embarassing and demoralising.
To see Dooris talk transparency and honesty was equally frustrating – especially trying to criticise other agencies who were doing things properly whilst he lied.
Great work Mumbrella and awesome to see this happen finally.
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nuff said
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Steve,
Understand that you feel like an investigative journalist but is it really necessary to publicly post a mobile number and signature?
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A good article which exposes some of the under the table tactics which are used when pulling together award entries by some agencies. Who are these award ceremonies for? Judges from agencies, KPIs to win awards at the agency level and extreme manipulation of data, dates etc all for some bling to sit at reception to help win more business. No thanks
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Heard rumours about questionable claims from these guys for some time…good to see some truths come out….#mediatoo
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Let’s hope that this is the start of a bigger investigation. It would be too easy to scapegoat a smaller agency for an industry issue and let the bigger players get away with it.
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Our agency has never entered awards and never will due to this very reason. Inflated statements of client wins and dollar amounts within the big boys club. We work with many of the nation’s largest travel and hotel brands due one thing…. performance and asking prospective clients to call our existing clients…not look at any awards. Not just the industry should wake about awards but clients basing their decision on how many awards the agency has won.
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Look, if everyone else is doing it, then we should be able to aswell. Sorry you feel misled but we just really wanted to win more than anyone else did.
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This is truly disgraceful. But having worked at an agency where the CEO was an absolute master at bull shitting the juries of all major awards, I am not really surprised. Worked for him…he is now a global CEO….
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‘The only agency to ever win the Australian Awards Grand Slam: Adnews, Mumbrella, B&T and Campaign Agency of the Year in one year.’
Might need to update that agency-wide email signature soon, team.
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Utterly despicable
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So let me get this straight, according to this article and the photo of Dooris’s PowerPoint slide it would appear Mindshare has ‘lost’ Amex, Nike, Foxtel and Red Rooster to Atomic. Wow Katie RS must be wondering what the 50 or so people hired on those accounts at Mindshare are doing day in and day out…
What a disgrace!
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Jaw-on-floor-whilst-highly-pissed-off emoji to be inserted here
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Finally the real facts are revealed. Thank you Mumbrella for a great investigative story,unfortunately doesn’t help build trust in our industry.Jason,s credibility is shot especially when he sprukes Transparency.
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We all talk about talent shortage.
Well let the industry as a whole band together including recruiters and employ everyone who currently works at Atomic. This isn’t their fault.
Surely we can have a job for every single last one of them by Christmas.
Then we shall see how many clients and awards Atomic 212 has next year.
#saveA212staff
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Just go back and read every one of the embarrassing press releases over the years.
If your CEO is dodgy it’s not worth working there. No matter what the agency. It sticks. I’ve worked for a dodgy CEO we all knew was dodgy and it tarnishes your entire career.
The dodgy CEO’s are getting found out.
Great work Mum.
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This stuff sickens me to the core. It places question and doubt over the professionalism of our industry and opens us up for attack. Cue the consultancies.
I feel sorry for the clients and the staff. If this is the stuff in an award entry then what else is false? The time sheets, the media invoices? Good people will get hurt because of lies and deception.
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This is a complete disgrace. As a competitor agency to Atomic I also resent the implication in the comments that ‘everyone does it’. Putting the best light on your year is not the same as blatantly lying. Every industry publication – Mumbrella included – needs to do a recount and choose a worthy winner at past awards, or refund agencies in the same category who’ve spent many head hours, hundreds of dollars on entry fees and literally thousands of dollars to buy tables at events, only to lose to a fraudulent competitor. Who were the runners up?
Who missed out? That’s real money down the drain. Anything less is unacceptable. And a weaselly “in spite of all this, we still think they deserved to win” just isn’t believable. Atomic’s bullshit has been an open secret in the industry for years, and it’s incredibly galling to see their ‘meteoric rise’ when you play the game fairly. #metoo
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I can just picture the crisis meeting, complete with an iPad on wheels swiveling madly.
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And this why we don’t enter awards
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Rather ungracious of Jason to forget who his Chairman is. Especially since BO’B has taught him everything he knows.
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At a recent awards event these guys also claimed they offered 12 month full-time paid maternity leave. Is this also a lie?
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The last thing media needs is someone like Jason Dooris writing amateur articles on transparency in media, and then undermining his own message by taking advantage of the exact opposite.
I can only hope that A212 scrapes the burnt egg off the pan.
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I hope they’re more accurate with their invoicing than they are with their award entries.
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Judging be previous agency management issues such as this, I expect the ‘major exaggerations’ will turn out to be the fault of a junior member of staff. These guys never do the decent thing.
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In their desperation to win awards Atomic have completely lost sight of what’s important.
The agencies they have ‘beaten’ in awards over the last few years deserve to feel aggrieved.
Like the Russians, Atomic should be banned from all awards shows in 2018. It might do them some good to focus on winning some actual business rather than wasting their time writing case studies for Spanish ad campaigns and fictitious new business wins.
I feel a resignation coming on….
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Hi Jason, Will you apologise?
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Great article and ohhhhhhh so true …. however I have on authority Mumbrella knew about this through one of their award nights last year ( A212 did not win as they informed judges all may not be right)…. however after knowing the truth for at least 7 months …only now they come out with it as another (adnews) competitor reports it….whilst A212 are beyond words, are the trade press trying to keep their conference $$$$$ until they can no longer
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(Edited by Mumbrella for legal reasons)!
If they are willing to lie publicly in print. (Edited by Mumbrella for legal reasons)
A CEO who writes entries, then can’t remember what is in the entry…
Knowingly writing Stuart Mitchells name (instead of Barry) on an entry when he isn’t the Chairman? Having input from Stuart over the years… (Edited by Mumbrella for legal reasons)
They should be stripped of EVERY award, just like sport cheats.
They’ve won clients, awards and a big fat salary for Dooris on lies, lies, lies and MORE lies. (Edited by Mumbrerlla for legal reasons)
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I’ll guess 6 months from now A212 will rebrand saying ‘it’s a new beginning’ and of course we’ll all remember this article will be the reason why.
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using #metoo or #mediatoo – so much criticism for taking credit, yet using a symbol representing a worldwide movement affecting over half the world’s population for 1 industry seems a bit hypocritical….
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Gee whiz. Takes a long time to build trust, and one stupid act to destroy it. There’d be a lot of stomach turning amongst senior management right now. But, is this any worse than the MediaCom and Dentsu scandals of recent times? This one reflects poorly on only one person. The others reflect systemic dishonesty directly at clients expense
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Great reveal on Campaign Asia. Though it should be noted that the editorial teams and the awards teams are miles apart. Still, there should be scrutiny of claims.
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This will be the end of Atomic212. They’ve imploded at their own hands. Trust is zero. Honest staff will be hurt. Regardless they should be vanquished from our industry .
I can’t imagine any genuinely honest client thinking their brand or budget would be safe with them.
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(Edited by Mumbrella for legal reasons). It’s a real shame for an industry already having its value queried by clients, to have these gross exaggerations at work.
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It has come to our attention that there is industry speculation about the validity of the Agency Head of The Year Award we received from Campaign Asia 2015/2016.
As an agency that prides itself on its clients, work, team and reputation, it is important to address this issue. We want any award won by Atomic 212° to be undisputed and celebrated.
We have had claims reported back to us that our award submission contained misleading Information. We refute this.
While we are aware that an award submission is always going to be open to interpretation, it was never our intention to be ambiguous. We are gratified that the Campaign Asia team supports this view.
As a new type of agency that combines creative, media, data, technology and many other emerging services under one roof and business, there is a challenge determining where we fit into many awards programs. In competing in awards events, we always seek to find common metrics and values that allow achievements or client value to be compared across service lines. This is no easy task.
After questions were raised, we set about reviewing individual awards from the perspective of the lowest baseline; are our submissions clear and obvious enough? Is the context sufficient to tell the full story we need to tell? Can the juror distinguish between creative achievements, media achievements or technology service and software sales achievements? Does any lack of clarity around these distinctions cloud a jurors’ ability to make accurate comparisons between an Atomic 212° submission and that of another organisation?
As part of this process and review, we identified areas in our submissions which may be of concern to non-full-service agency competitors and immediately contacted Campaign Asia 2016. On Tuesday December 5th, Campaign Asia reviewed the award, this time accompanied by additional and comprehensive providence.
On consideration and full review of the facts, Campaign Asia advised that the award should stand and, after assessment of our entry, it was comfortable we met the submission criteria.
Some of the claims against us were that we were misleading in regard to billings and that some of the brands included in the submission, who were contacted by our competitors, had not worked with us. This is untrue.
It is common practice for full-service agencies to enlist specialty third-parties and associates within campaigns. We can verify that those which form part of our submission worked with all the brands listed.
As we work across many different service lines, disciplines and media channels, it is highly possible that we may be working with client personnel who do not have a media role. Disputed clients mentioned in our submission, whom we have contacted, are prepared to support and validate our work with them.
It is also usual practice for the lead agency to claim the client in its billings.
There was also speculation about a claim in our submission that Stuart Mitchell was Chairman of Atomic 212°. I seek to clarify that Mr Mitchell was a consultant to our Chairman, Barry O’Brien and our Board.
As CEO of Atomic 212°, it is my personal responsibility to ensure the highest standards exist in award submissions at all times. Final approval and review rests with me and I am committed to ensuring our standards are high and consistent now and in future.
Barry O’Brien, Chairman of Atomic 212° said: “I appreciate that some of our competitors may feel parts of our submission are a stretch, however, having worked closely with Campaign Asia, I am satisfied as Chairman, that the evidence of our work and the clients we have done work for, backs up that submission.”
We are exceptionally proud of our people, our clients and our relationships and thank all our clients, who are supporting us over this issue.
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yep
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yes. along with their internship programs, barber shop and anything else pr’d
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This scandal doesn’t start and finish at Atomic212 people.
There are others. Check out the claims made in some of the recent winning B&T Agency Award entries for a start.
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Look at all the finalists they have upcoming on the 14th Dec:
http://aoyawards.com/anz/
Including one for Mr Dooris himself.
(Edited for legal reasons)? What if they win one?
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Best on the thread.
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Hi Interesting (If that’s your real name),
Your comment suggests that you haven’t actually read the article. (Which I know is quite a rare omission for somebody commenting anonymously on the internet).
Had you done so, you’d see that we did become aware of questions that the jury needed to ask during the live judging process at the Mumbrella Awards. (So, yes, anybody who read the article also has that on authority.) We were able to share that information with the jury and let them ask those tough questions and draw their own conclusions.
Atomic were shortlisted in a number of categories and in every case the relevant jury did not choose them as a winner. In one case we invited the jury to vote on whether the entry should actually be disqualified. The jury voted by four votes to three not to disqualify (so they scored the entry, although it did not win). Personally, I would have voted to disqualify. But my role was to give the facts to the impartial jury, then respect their decision, which I do.
To suggest that we’re “only now” coming out with it because AdNews (and also B&T, by the way) reported that Atomic put out a statement is also a misunderstanding. The reason Atomic gave that to our rivals within the trade press was because we had shared with them the results of our investigation and they were aware that we were preparing to publish. It may surprise you to hear that this 3000 or so word article took longer to research and write than the three hours that followed AdNews publishing the Atomic statement.
If I wanted to keep it under the table, I wouldn’t have commissioned a journalist to spend several weeks undertaking this investigation.
If you are interested, I’ll have a bit more to say on the matter in tomorrow’s Best of the Week email.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
ha #mediatoo good one.
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this is awesome. one way to check – are the billings in other mumbrella award entries the same as what the public companies are reporting to the asx?
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Appalling! Unfortunately this reflects on the total industry and undermines our trust with our clients/
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For the sake of Atomic’s staff, I 1000% hope this is not a genuine statement from the company’s CEO (Horses Mouth… really?).
Clearly their ‘new type of agency model’ doesn’t include PR.
Grabs popcorn.
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Jason if this statement is from you, why post it under a pseudonym?
Is there a reason you don’t want to put your name to it?
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I hope clients don’t tar the entire media industry due to the actions of Jason at Atomic 212 . Trust is critical and this doesn’t help.
Interesting that last week at the B&T Awards they won best independent agency? Plus they were a sponsor? Hopefully the awards are re-cindered and the runner up is quite rightly awarded the trophy.
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Hi #adlife,
Good thought. Sadly though most agencies are globally aligned and don’t tend to report to the ASX.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
This is terrible and unfortunate situation. However, this one bad incident shouldn’t reflect on the total media industry. The MFA Awards and the Effies put a lot of effort into the rigour and verification of their entries. Award shows need to be transparent and review all their criteria and past winners to ensure credibility.
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I feel sorry for the employees at Atomic. (Edited by Mumbrella for legal reasons)
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Hold on guys I am on my way! I will save the day.
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Their award wins should be scrapped and given to whoever came 2nd.
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A company in an industry that’s all about the strategic release, “framing”, or withholding of information/material to manipulate perceptions and achieve favourability getting pulled up for winning multiple awards by being extra flexible with the truth in order to manipulate perceptions and achieve favourability… maybe he really is as good as he claims.
Sorry, for the facetiousness, it’s just what springs to mind. Good investigation.
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Are they going to take down the 98% staff retention rate graphic which I’ve heard is proudly displayed?
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Firstly I commend Mumbrella for the detail pertaining to this investigation. The facts are there , they cannot be disputed . Jason must fall on his sword . It is clear Barry was not aware of all this , must be a tough time for him right now . What an unmitigated disaster this is . I feel for the clients , the staff. And to pen a response under ” horses mouth ” above shows a complete lack of judgement as well . Sad and frustrating day for our industry. I suggest Jason D must do the right thing before this gets even worse for him and his agency .
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Yes. The true chairman must take over now. It’s the only way. How could this have happened?
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Well done to mumbrella for this exposé – however the industry press is partially responsible for this. The implication is that credibility is lost not just for A212, but also for Adnews, campaignasia, B&T etc – with their commercial interests seemingly outweighing their journalistic integrity. Mr Dooris made the claims, but the publications substantiated and celebrated it, with complete disregard for factual submissions.
We should be equally diligent in awarding accolades as we are in exposing wrong-doing.
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I see they’re event shortlisted in PR agency of the year!
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Did Jason Dooris just change his LinkedIn to read ‘Jason D.’ to avoid LinkedIn’s “mentioned in the news” feature, or has it always been Jason D.?
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I have judged awards for many years – including Mumbrella. I find it almost incredible that in the finalist review – which is face to face – that the other agency judges did not suspect many of these claims were false. It’s a small industry after all. Either way the reps from 212 in the room must have know how dodgy these claims were. I agree that many agencies might go in for a little bit of exaggeration in award entries , but this is on entirely different scale. It is clearly intentional deception on a grand and systemic scale. I would be very concerned if I was a client as to what this tells me about the culture of this particular agency.
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Atomic’s staff retention rate is much lower than quoted. People accept roles on one account, only to start at the agency on a different account, without any consultation. Jason’s exaggerations also runs to staff credentials.
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The best 😀
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I don’t know. The bar in their office seems pretty well stocked!
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Hilarious that with all that’s going on they are still trying to hire people! What will they be working on?
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The barber shop is there. And it’s quite nice actually.
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I’m not sure what’s worse, his original behaviour or the above comment, which we can only assume is from him. You have been busted lying mate, fess up and apologise. It’s not a case of subjectivity…Mumbrella have been very clear with their evidence. You are an embarrassment to our industry. And return your awards on the way out please…
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(Edited for legal reasons) Jason come on. Own up and apologise with grace and it will blow over.
You’re fueling fire.
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What’s worse?
Atomic’s outrageous claims in their award entries, or their feigned ”it’s all a big misunderstanding’ attempt to defend the indefensible?
If their clients accept that sort of behaviour,
then they are condoning it.
If the industry fails to highlight it, and call them to account, then we are condoning it.
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Well done Mumbrella. All respect to you for doing the right thing and exposing this sort of terrible behaviour.
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Par 4. “Atomic were shortlisted…”.
They were then they weren’t? Or “Atomic was shortlisted…”.
Great work though.
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Good request for clarity, JG. They remained shortlisted throughout.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
What’s the odds that Atomic 212 is banned from the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics?!
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Barry O’Brien
I am truly sorry sorry that you have become caught up in this sad and sorry tale of Atomic. Anyone who knows you would find it beyond belief that you would put your name to the alleged activities of the CEO.
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Horse’s mouth? Another orifice maybe
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The one mind-blowingly obvious opportunity to actually be transparent…pisses it away. Amazing.
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Just to be clear (and anonymous – hi y’all at mumbrella !) I know someone who is an acquaintance of horses mouth
It was Jason’s statement. But Jason did not post it. So at least he’s not that dumb…small mercies
It is as published inB&T in full last night
Along with a bit of a mild shot at defending Jason and B&T for granting them the B&T independent agency of the year award.
Media Watch might want to compare the checking done by B&T jounos vs mr jones who contracts to mumbrella. Bit of a difference. Wonder if that is reflected in the judging rigour between the two outlets? Atomic did seem to take quite a few ads on B&T prior and was a sponsor. That’s a bit messy.
Anyway thought I’d clear that up. It’s Jason’s press release to Ad News and B&T sent to head Jones and Mumby off at the pass. Sort of backfired a little. So hard to get the tone right I guess when you’re bullshitting about complete bullshit. . A bit whiffy for B&T unfortunately who were fine to publish it and a story with no checking at all. Ad News pretty similar response too.
Horse passes on his best
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But it never has a barber in it
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Alas, public companies are not obligated to report advertising / media spend, so most dont.
Nice thought but yeah nah
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It has come to our attention that there is industry speculation about the validity of many awards that we have won over the last couple of years.
This is nothing but sour grapes from our competitors, and headline seeking publicity from Tim at Mumbrella who still seems high off his 17 vodka-shot-espresso-martinis he’s been guzzling daily since the SSM vote result came out.
As anyone who has been in our industry knows, when you win an award you celebrate it loud and proud and when you don’t, you silently think of how shit that other agency was and why they don’t deserve to win. So when someone like Mumbrella says something to validate your pathetic 2nd place thinking, you all clamber on board to kick the winner, like the conga line of losers that you are.
Look at all the people who still have “Agency of the Year 2016” in their email signatures. So 2016.
How about, instead of getting upset about not getting one of the 389 awards handed out every year in our industry, you take a good hard look at yourself and work out why you aren’t being nominated or winning more awards. I mean there’s 389 of them, more than plenty to go around. It might be, potentially, possibly, add one, subtract two… because your work is shit?
And that’s the other thing missing in all this – which is glorious in a way for us. The complaints are all about whether we misrepresented a client name on an entry form or something like that. Like wtf? You don’t get awards for the size of media billings or how big your client is. It’s a non-issue. The vast majority of awards we won are for outstanding campaigns for client brands. They are real campaigns, real pieces of work on real clients. And we won. Our campaigns won. And no one is saying the work was fake, or bad. The work we did, and still do, is outstanding.
Get back to your second rate lives in second rate agencies, and feel free to reply anonymously to this comment.
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I can tell you as an ex ‘person’ that this investigation is long overdue. The direction and choices made by the leadership team were disturbing.
This shouldn’t reflect on the staff though, who were/are among some of the smartest people I’ve worked with.
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Great work Mumbrella. Keep it up
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This comment is 100% brilliant.
Mumbrella’s article is pretty unprofessional and have applied a pretty unethical frame to the situation. It’s also really disappionting to see the industry tear A212 to shreads on 1 submission from 2/3 years ago. Shows how threatened the industry is and how willingly they are to try and sabotage Jason and the teams success.
…There’s a saying that you can’t burn a witch that is already on fire …??
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Wake up guys,
It’s been an open secret for at least a few years now that Tim Burrows hates Jason.
Personally I think this article is the beginning of the end for Mumbrella. You have an editor attempting to destroy someone personally. Get past the trolls and people really don’t like it. It’s Un-Australian. Not an agency, not a team, but personally? Really?
I just had a look back at Mumbrella’s coverage of scam adds over the years and the focus typically is on the agency, why the sudden change?
This article’s (I use the noun loosely) headline leads with an individual’s name, then repeats it time and time again, talk about character assassination.
As for a CEO like Aimee betraying a trust with Adnews and sending private emails from Rosie to Mumbrella it plays to a growing pattern of nastiness and really is disgraceful at that level. Who will ever trust Aimee again? And what does this say about the obvious collusion?
MediaCom were our agency through what was a very serious period of (edited by Mumbrella for legal reasons) inappropriate behaviour. This was a very serious issue and it all started from a story which I believe was broke by Mumbrella.
Interesting, no character destruction of the then CEO Pejic from Mumbrella. Note: MediaCom are a good Agency today.
As for Jason you either love him or hate him. Personally I probably started on the dislike side but grew to really respect him and enjoy spending time with him.
Mumbrella, you guys have been bashing the other trade press and their awards programs for years. You have grown on the back of hurting our industry and creating a natural home for repulsive trolls. I doubt it’s a coincidence that your business is also an awards program business.
You have really let your self down on this one Mumbrella.
I don’t expect that you will post my comments so I will just upload a screen image as an opinion piece somewhere just so the industry can see bias flowing through this article.
As an ex client the article fills me with both sadness and anger.
Atomic Melbourne, you are on our next pitch list!
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As a client who has worked both sides I can probably speak for most if not all clients when I say that we never, ever appoint an agency based on award wins. It’s all colourful bluster. Irrelevant
Every agency blows there own trumpet and markets the hell out of themselves. Jesus, it’s what they are built to do.
Clearly Atomic are a bit better at it than the rest of the pack.
There is a real stench of a personal attack in this article. A personal attack on a home grown success story and a personal attack on Adnews, B&T and Campaign, publishers who have been supporting this industry, it’s people and brand Australia for a very long time.
I believe if we ran an industry poll on whether you are welcome in Australia you would find an overwhelming majority of people voting for you to leave and take your trolls with you.
No class and a big dent in what was already a car wreck of a brand in Mumbrella
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Having always worked client side, everyone knows that agencies live and breathe the culture of what we actually pay them to do. To tell the best story, influence choice and deliver an outcome – sounds like that was what was done in Atomics award submissions. The other thing we know is that awards are not inclusive of many of the great agencies out there – and realistically bullshit. If you have the time and money to invest to enter, and then spend thousands on the awards dinner, you might be in with a chance. Shouldn’t the issue be more about the awards process and rigour rather than an agencies entries? Suggest you audit your criteria, judging panels independence and diversity, instead of complaining about the process and winners after the fact.
When I employ an agency, it’s not the trinkets they have sitting on the mantle that matter. It’s the quality of work, commitment of their teams and ability to understand and deliver what’s best for my business. Maybe you should run your awards based on Client Choice, rather every trade mag creating awards to generate revenue.
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Dear, Anon.
Don’t be angry. Be better.
Anon.
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Your point being?
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Hello “Alaistair”,
(Are you sure that’s the correct spelling of the name you’ve just made up?)
That’s an unusual open secret where even I was unaware of it. As it happens, I’ve never exchanged a cross word with Jason. And indeed, I’ve spent more time watching him present to awards juries than we have face to face. On the occasions our paths have crossed, it’s always been friendly. You’re mistaken to suggest that I have any antipathy towards him.
The reason this particular article focuses on Jason Dooris rather than the wider agency is because the winning Campaign Asia award entry that we’ve obtained and fact checked in this story is for “agency head of the year”, won by Jason and signed off by Jason. Of course the wider management have questions to ask themselves too.
As for our coverage of Mediacom two or three years back, we didn’t suggest any wrong doing by Mark Pejic, because we saw no evidence of wrong doing by Mark Pejic. (You do understand the irony of complaining about focusing on an individual, while focusing on an individual, don’t you?)
You might also want to try to get your story slightly straighter. If you’re a client but Atomic isn’t your agency, why are you spending all that time with Jason which you say you enjoy?
And if you’re now an ex marketer, why are Atomic on your next list? Doesn’t make you sounds like an ex marketer to me.
And is this article really the catalyst for you to decide to put Atomic on your next (imaginary) pitch list? You saw it and thought ‘Yup, these are the people I want to consider giving my business for…” ? I admire your support of underdogs.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Hi Clientside Observer,
Thanks for taking the trouble to go onto an industry website at 10.41pm on a Saturday night to write at length on an article about awards about how awards don’t matter and that you don’t pay any attention to them.
Cheers,
Tim – MUmbrella
Hi “Burn baby burn”,
The submission central to this article is for an award won just under a year ago. Jason Dooris is Campaign Asia’s reigning agency head of the year for another four days, until this year’s ceremony on December 14.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Dear Sad Day,
I can see nothing personal in mumbrella’s article.
Its one thing for an agency to blow its own trumpet.
It’s another thing entirely to ‘allegedly’ deceive, claim clients you don’t have, and do so at the expense of your peers.
I would be just as interested in the information Atomic provided clients in their account pitch submissions as their award entries.
How many of their stellar account wins could have been won on allegedly providing false information?
I look forward to all their ‘disputed’ clients providing written confirmation of a commercial relationship as Mr.Dooris claims they will.
But I doubt they will.
This is not a case of ‘stretching the truth’ in the hope of winning a little trinket – it’s about conduct, if true, makes it harder for all of us to conduct business without suspicion and further scrutiny.
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When will be the expose into Lucy The Robot
A campaign that was PRed initially with no mention of the client.
A campaign where the agency removed the client logo from the product and replaced it with their own, with no visibility for the client anywhere.
A campaign for a small Us company done by a small Sydney agency. But for some reason the client was never mentioned but the agency used it as a way to promote its own services.
A campaign that won awards which put atomic on pitch lists and helped get its ranking up despite it ultimately being laughed out of jury rooms due to so many questions.
One could argue it was the start of all the exaggerations.
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Correct, we share an IP address, as I have a husband who also uses the internet from home (gee another scandal?) I am a marketer, and have worked with multiple agencies over the years – some award winning, and some not. Again awards mean nothing, and clients just want the job done well.
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You’d think an multi-award winning business leader would have access to less clumsy comms help. Acknowledging the tricky brief, obvs
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And the two of you sit together writing comments on the same Mumbrella story within a few minutes of each other late on a Saturday night. You must be some of our best readers. Odd you’ve never previously commented on anything else from this address.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
I thought this was a media agency not a Creative Agency…ouch to all the good guys…
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It’s the casual misspelling of Media.com to Mediacom which gets me.
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wow – never fails to surprise me how seriously people in this industry take themselves. #metoo, seriously?
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This little sub-plot is fucking hilarious and has made my night. Thank you Alister Reynolds you client side marketer you, and your lovely wife client side observer.
Even though no one knows who you are, or your relationship to the parties involved – you must feel rather silly.
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wholeheartedly agree – any men of media using this hashtag to bemoan the unfairness of a couple of agency awards nights really need to do a quick dictionary check on the word ‘irony’. And then stop using it immediately.
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I wonder if there is any correlation between the IP address associated with Mr. “Alaistair Reynolds”, and the IP address of a household belonging to someone mentioned in this article?
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Dear Sad Day,
Well then you are a part of the problem. Telling porky pies is unacceptable. Falsehoods and lies MUST be uncovered and reported by credible sources, for the health of our industry and our community. You are evidence that the issues are systemic then, which is a shame.
Mumbrella, keep fighting the good fight!
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Breaking news. Tim from Mumbrella belittles another readers comments.
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@BBB
Breaking news: Tim was returning fire, after catching out, what appears to be an agenda pushing troll.
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Very clear who the “Loser” is in this story.
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This is a mess. This is sad.
As an MD of an agency who has competed directly (and lost) against Atomic I have been looking up to them as an example and benchmark of success. Many times I have found myself desiring and wishing to know the secret sauce of their success and victories. I’m saddened and sorry to read this story.
In times that our industry needs more transparency and honesty, this situation drags us all to a worse place.
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Alaistair Reynolds
Totally agree with you on this.. It is character assassination
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Mumbrella please note commenting three times does not equate to a lot now who is exaggerating
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As dishonest as Jason’s actions have been, I think some of the blame has to go to the various panels who gave out the awards. The article reads like no due diligence whatsoever was done, which makes the whole nature of the awards themselves a sham. If someone claims to have won a media deal with Nike and can’t give the name of someone at Nike to corroborate that, wouldn’t that be a smidge of red flag.
Incidentally, we will be shorty to enter all awards for winning all the media and development contracts in the whole world. Happy days…..
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Dear Fraser
Quote from your comment:
‘I think some of the blame has to go to the various panels who gave out the awards’.
Are you for real?
It’s incumbent on agencies not to lie – not award juries to question every entry.
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Some people on this thread acting like it’s only the awards that were the problem. Not the systematic, calculated dodginess.
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This comment so perfectly straddles the possibilities of either being satire, or an actual childish kickback from A212 that it’s impossible to know which it is, and I love it. I never want to know.
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Is there a Dr. in the house? Nicely done.
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You’re welcome. And you’ll never know. Unless Tim pulls out his IP checking machine again.
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I actually wrote it as satire, but the fact that you honestly couldnt work out if it was satire or a childish kickback from A212 might say something about the perception of A212 right now!!
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This is the tip of the iceberg.
This article from Mumbrella is worth a read.
https://www.mumbrella.asia/2013/08/confessions-of-a-scam-artist
We all know that the award circuit is full of bullshit stunts and fabricated case studies.
The problem is that careers are built on these falsehoods.
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Yeah yeah, he stretched the truth on some application forms. It could be worse. I mean, at least he wasn’t having gin with some friends.
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Here here. They should have learnt to walk before trying to run and keep up with the big boys.
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He stretched the truth enough to win awards by deception, so is it fair to assume he stretched the truth enough to win accounts by deception too? If so, people have lost jobs, clients have been deceived and the industry is made to look like a bunch of charlatans. That’s much worse than a gin and tonic, don’t you think Big Deal?
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Nail on head. This article is questioning the integrity of a particular person who has used dodgy ways of working to better his own career. Of course there are larger issues to be discussed but I commend mumbrella for finally revealing this. There are hard working people under Jason who are witnessing his way as a way of ‘getting to the top’, when it’s the very last model we should be trying to imitate.
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2006
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dooris
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So apologies if I should have overread that part- did Mumbrella then strip Atomic of their 2016 Media Agency of the Year prize?
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Hi Interested Follower,
Thanks for the question. The claims which raised serious issues in our awards related to some of Atomic’s entires into the 2017 Mumbrella Awards, which saw the final round of judging in May this year. Based on the questions raised (and Atomic’s answers on the day), the jury did not make them the winner in any of the categories, which means there aren’t any awards to strip them of from this time round, which was the period when many of the most exaggerated claims appear to have been being made.
While we’ve examined their entry for the previous year since this came to light, we have not thus far discovered inaccuracies. However, we will be scrutinising it further if necessary, and would of course act upon anything we find.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
This is sad to read and Jason must fall on his sword. Barry O’Brien is one of the most respected media men in the country and was unaware of what his CEO was doing. To everyone that knows Barry he will restore Atomic212 back to credibility very quickly after Jason exits the building.
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Steve Jones. What’s your email address?
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Hi there,
You can reach Steve at steve@mumbrella.com.au.
Thanks,
Vivienne
Mumbrella