The Scam Lions? Count me out

Good on you for taking a stand. I am interested how much as a whole Australia invests in Cannes (award entries, flights, accommodation, entertainment not to mention time costs). It will be well into 7 figures. Ultimately it is the clients that pay for this. That is a shame given the amount of scam.

Be honest Tim: do you dream that one day Cannes won’t exist and the globally recognised creative gongs will be the Mumbrella Awards? Sure, there’s a chance it might happen, but I tend to think Cannes is more attractive for a jolly than Chippendale.

Here’s the thing you can work out how much people pay, because all their entries are listed. Some of the agencies mentioned would be pumping $50k plus a year into Cannes alone. And to be honest, the clients probably don’t pay, it’s the staff with no pay rises – that’s the bit of the bottom line it’s taken from. For most agencies it would be cheaper to buy everyone a bottle of Grange every year and still have plenty left over.

You’re not bleating, nor boring us Tim. What you’ve started is something our industry clearly (and desperately) needs. Don’t send your journos to Cannes by all means, your prerogative, but please don’t stop calling out the bullshit. No trade journo has had the will nor balls to do this until mUmbrella did. And personally I will never tire of watching bullshit artists being called out publicly. You know it makes sense.

Why waste time on scams like Cannes? Ad agencies take part in such scams for one reason. Instead of sales ad agencies seek applause.

What about The Spikes? Same organisers.

Should be an interesting year..

Well played. A rare dose of proper journalism. Cannes is a joke in 2014 as the ‘festival of creativity’ anyway. I mean, who the hell is this industry kidding? So massively up its own khyber.

This is the difference between journalism and a PR release blogged about.

You should still report and celebrate great work that gets up. There’s plenty of real, groundbreaking marketing each year on a host of brands.

When we give up on that, well, what’s left?

If you have sat through as many agency presentations as I have, you would believe that every shop is Australia’s’ top 3 most creatively awarded agency’.
So before you leave the trophy ladened lobby, pick up a random paper weight and ask 3 questions:
1-Where and when did the work appear?
2-Is the client still on their roster?
3-Is the creative team is still working for the agency?

If you don’t get intelligent answers, the only way you should have a follow up session is to beat them down on the fees.

Cannes jumped the shark when they awarded so many trophies to Dumb Ways To Die. Nice ad, sure, but hardly an all-time great. There’s your scam. For perspective, C’mon Aussie C’mon probably didn’t get a single award at any award show.

Bravo. its just embarrassing for all involved really and just confirms the self indulgence that is bred in some agencies over solving customer or business problems

Good for you Tim.

It’s quite sad to see how bloated this once fit festival has become.

Move on Mumbrella… You have flogged this horse already.

I’m sure they will be heartbroken, or not notice. Could go either way….

So self-righteous.

Tim, thank you …have also enjoyed the tenacity of your journalism and your exposure of how (some) of these awards really work. I look forward to your future critiquing of Cannes winners with great interest!

Good story Tim – maybe we could have both – Cannes for the genuine campaigns and a parallel festival that celebrates the best in ideas no matter what budget. I do recall a scam ads festival in a pie factory in Sydney some years ago. They are both legitimate but not fair to mix both genuine campaigns and scam ads together in the one festival.

As for Terry Savage trying to justify The Rouse Hill Times campaign with the line that “Super Bowl ads only run once” – true but those one-off ads run once to 112 million viewers so probably not a fair comparison.

Good story Tim – maybe we could have both – Cannes for the genuine campaigns and a parallel festival that celebrates the best in ideas no matter what budget. I do recall a scam ads festival in a pie factory in Sydney some years ago. They are both legitimate but not fair to mix both genuine campaigns and scam ads together in the one festival.

As for Terry Savage trying to justify The Rouse Hill Times campaign with the line that “Super Bowl ads only run once” – true but those one-off ads run once to 112 million viewers so probably not a fair comparison.

Well said Tim. Good for you for not accepting the “tall poppy” BS. Some people can’t, or do not want to, accept the truth about these ads.
DB

For me Cannes started going off course and became a bit suss when one entry could win so many many categories, like in 2009. A popular campaign is one thing and that’s all good, but is it really the best in Radio, Point of Sale, etc etc. Not saying it can’t be this way but it’s happening more often. Is it to have a ‘most awarded campaign ever’ phenomenon, like we have the best Olympic games ever, every four years. There will always be scam, it happens in all awards. But Cannes, is an institution that needs to survive for the sake of the industry. Don’t fuck it up organiser guys, merely to give it value to sell. Also the people who do enter for the right reasons and who have ethics (like this years big winners for Volvo) don’t deserve the insult of a poorly run competition after such great work. Come clean, clean it up and all will be good.

100% support that. well done.

Good work Tim. More agencies should boycott this sham of a money-grab, festering with conflicts of interest and double speak.

Start Mumbrella Awards and stick to your principles. It’ll gather no moss in no time.

Great job guys, keep on keeping on with this.

Well done Tim. You’ve taken the wind out of their sails. It’s the same action people should take if they don’t like a TV show or a certain shock jock on radio. Complain with your feet by not tuning in. Advertisers and agencies would soon take note by shifting their dollars elsewhere.
Once agencies realise less people are reporting on these awards full of scams, they will actually loose their lustre. And no one wants to win a dull and rusty piece of ‘metal’.
I agree however, you shouldn’t stop investigating the ridiculousness of scam awards at mumbrella, you wouldn’t be doing your job as an investigative trade journalist if you didn’t.

Well, I’m certainly looking forward to next year. Got some amazing ideas for clients I don’t have (and never had); I’ll run them all for free in one of our low-circulation papers, once, and it’ll all be good. Right?

Hell, if I’m not solving an actual problem, does the client even need to be real?

Outstanding work, Tim and your team. Even if what you’ve called out isn’t scam advertising – because it’s within the letter of the rules – it certainly appears to be sham advertising.

Good on ya Tim.

I did some ads once and the clients thanked me because their sales went up.

Do they give awards for that? Or just money?

(I’m seeing: sunrise on the tundra, Beams of light through the mist. Napoleons ragged army struggles through the deep snow. At this point, insert any product shot.)

(A beach. Sun, sun, sun. A pretty, freckle-faced girl laughs as she throws an oversized multi-coloured beach ball. Insert any product here.)

Ah yes, I’ve still got it!

The good times that you spoke of Tim is a major part of the big picture. Celebrating great collaborations between talented agencies and brave clients.
You’re sweating the small stuff. I’m a creative and I’m happy to say that I’ve been fortunate enough to win a few awards at Cannes for legitimate work but I don’t get blinded by the idea that someone who has stretched the rules to win a poster award. Yes, there’s a few things that can be tweaked but there’s too much upside.
Every year there will be ‘scams’ but the majority of the inspiring work that’s on display from around the globe has been produced by good agencies for brave clients. It’s about seeing how Australia competes in a global context, what we’ve been good at and what are the opportunities for growth and learning.
Is there any award show or comms event in Australia that can showcase the breadth of inspiring work and speakers in so many categories for so many disciplines from around the world?

Chapeau, Tim.

I think it’s an old Nigerian axiom that’s most apt here;

‘A lion is always followed by hyenas’

Well done Tim, a good conclusion to a genuinely important issue Mumbrella has pursued.

@john hollands, shut up and take my money!

Let’s all go to SXSW instead!

Well done Mumbrella. You’ve exposed the international award circus and in the process you’ve made a few players look truly pathetic.

Keep it up, even if you don’t make it to the Gutter bar next year.

mUmbo is a long way from ‘testing my patience’ with this topic. On the contrary, I’m tuning in daily to see the updates.

Maybe I’m not the norm, but I wouldn’t assume the crowds will be turned off by this as ‘old news’. In fact, ‘moving on from this story’ as of next week feels like we’re stopping the DVD of a good journo flick half way through.

The big issue is the missing dog campaign. There’s diff. levels of scam. The McD’s was made to win awards, but it was for a rostered client who approved the work. To some, that’s ok. It’s pushing the boundaries, but not breaking them.

The missing dog was for a client that the agency did not have, and doesn’t seem to have run at all. It’s almost like a university project. I mean, the only thing we heard was the Marketing head saying it never ran in Australia.

That is a much bigger ad crime/story than the McDs.

good karma Tim, good for your brand

me thinks Lynchy is rubbing his (moderated) hands in glee

Guess what Tim. Nobody really gives a shit if you go to Cannes or not anyway!

Thank you Mumbrella. I personally would like to see you guys win a Walkley!. This is pure, courageous journalism.
Those in the industry, and those on the periphery, are now well informed about the Sham of Cannes.
I personally smell a business opportunity to establish the Ruse Advertiser – pure “distressed media” – circulating nowhere in particular, but more than ready and willing to take the last-minute half-pager to ensure whoever or whatever “qualifies” for 2015. Why shouldnt I clean up on the sham-gravy train too?
Hey – another brilliant idea – why not introduce a special category celebrating the most cynical application of the “rules” of entry. I’d like a commission on that one!
And a final word – were those wonderful Panasonic pups EVER located??? Hounded into oblivion?
Woof!

Well said Tim. Here’s to putting some integrity back in the system.

What a self-righteous rant! And the fact that people on these posts are calling this “investigative journqlism” is a joke and a huge insult to true journalists everywhere.

Maybe someone should write a story about the credibility of a media and marketing publication which was so unaware of an “issue” which is common knowledge in the industry.

Why not do story about all of the Cannes Lions categories, beyond just Press? Could it be that the results of your “investigation” would not be as sensational as writing a story on Press Lions alone? And then you wouldn’t be able to stand as proud up on your soap box? What you do is NOT journalism. It is bubble gum bullshit. So go back to posting the ad of the week and reporting audience totals for last night’s TV shows.

I’m going to unsubscribe to these mumbrella emails, which Outlook already filters into a dedicated folder amongst my other junk email. Will you care about the stand I am taking? No.
As you prepare to spend the next year preaching about this and positioning yourself as the model of marketing & advertising integrity (“it’s like I wrote about in my story about the Cannes Lions, blah blah blah”), you should ask yourself a similar question.

Are you the guy who got a boner when I told you to step aside?

What a kerfuffle you have got yourself into…

You have Bob Garfield articles reporting that everybody in advertising should kill themselves – picking up where Bill Hicks left off…

And we have Mumbrella saying they are over Cannes…

The problem you have created is that nobody gives a crap either way.

Well said.

What a self-righteous rant! And, for some of the posters on this site to call this investigative journalism is an insult to true journalists. Mumbrella positioned 4 people around the auditorium so Lollback couldn’t avoid your question. Wow! Woodward & Bernstein don’t have anything on the folks at Mumbrella.

Maybe someone should write a story about the marketing & media journalists who were completely unaware of a practice which is essentially common knowledge in the advertising & marketing industry.

With respect to the ads in question, are you offended as a consumer? or as a journalist / marketeer? Shouldn’t you also be boycotting McDonald’s? (maybe it’s easier to give up French bread & wine than it is the delicious Egg McMuffin!)

Interestingly, you focused your “investigation” on the Cannes Press Lions and not all categories at Cannes. Is that because the results of an investigation into all categories would not have been as sensational? Had you looked at Cannes lions across all categories, maybe you would not have had such a high soapbox to stand on.

I imagine this investigation will be the raised by you at every chance you get between now & next year’s awards. (“it’s like I wrote about after we uncovered the truth about Cannes, blah blah blah”) Please don’t position yourself as some moral high-ground for the industry. Go back to posting the ad of the week & the number of people who watched MasterChef last night. This investigation is a bubble-gum BS puff-piece…

I’ll be unsubscribing from the Mumbrella emails which Outlook already quite insightfully files into my junk email box. Will you care? No.
Maybe you should ask yourself a similar question with respect to the organizers at Cannes.

i love the fact that some people are playing the player not the ball, great work Tim, i was there in 2010 and vowed not to go again. my take, the issue is that Cannes is a money making venture, more categories every year = more entries = more money = more confusion. If it really is the festival of creativity then there should be only one category (who cares what medium it ran in) justified by the fact that it actually ran (at significant levels).

Even a good portion of the “real” work that wins is what I would call paid scam, initiated by big clients who want to feel like innovators. Great example being the silly Coke “Small World” project which was tailor-made to enter in award shows.

Hey @JohnT – what were you on between your anti-Tim rant you posted at 9.55 pm 30 July and the almost duplicate same rant you did at 12.57 am 31 July three hours later? Your cred went south there dude. Or are you just a mate of Macca’s Mark Lollbeck trying to dumb down the really honest and genuine advertising creatives that Tim supports in his Cannes item?

The commentary from the (they seem to be) pro cheating brigade is rather like hearing Lance Armstrong back in the day when he was denying that he was doped up to the eyeballs on EPO, pretty much every time he raced. Stick to the good fight Tim and keep fighting, asking questions and uncovering the truth. The bullies often do not like the truth because he can hurt the sham that they have created over endless years of conning their clients, staff and industry. Let the cowboys hurt, they do not deserve the ‘glory’ that they have received from placing ‘Art’ in The Rouse Hill Times.

it* can hurt

I’m curious to know whether this debate is taking place in any other markets around the world……….

John T’s self-righteous rant about a self-righteous rant made me look up, put down my copy of Ironic Weekly, and smile. And for good measure he had a second one.

Sorry. There goes all the wind from my sails. Re-posted a second time after checking 2 hours later and it seemed to have been deleted.
And on the second time around, the client said he wanted some more copy he wanted to add…..oh well, whatever makes him happy…as long as he signs off on those April ads in the Rouse Hill Times!

Like all fine wines, the experienced and knowledgeable can tell a good vintage from the poor.
Cannes 2014 will be remembered when vinegar and grape juice were passed off as the good stuff.
Celebrate away shammers and scammers.
We who know better, know better.

Couldn’t agree more Tim! Scam ads look pretty pathetic next to what the agencies write about themselves on their websites.

What I hope we’ll discuss next is the inherent quality in some of the work that wins. Take the Panasonic ads: they belong in a below-average student book. They’re identical to a previous campaign. Strategically they’re completely meaningless. And they win a bronze lion in Cannes. That’s a problem whether they’re scam or not.

Tim really had no choice but to stop coverage of the cannes festival, and fair enough too. And I imagine that he knows, as well as anyone, that it won’t really make any difference… but it’s important that your actions match your words, so good on him.

But to a degree I’m also with JohnT… I’m absolutely amazed that this story has come as a revelation to any trade journalist. Work created solely for awards (especially in print) has been the NORM for well over a decade. Probably twenty years. It started in Singapore by a bunch of british expats, and spread throughout asia and the rest of the world.

Brazil are now the current champs at it.

Anyway, if you’re in the industry you know that no-one cares who wins print. No-one. We all know it’s an increasingly irrelevant medium, and one that (at the shows) is pretty much dominated by scam.

(and MY definition of scam – everyone has their own it seems – is work that was solely designed to enter at shows without even the merest attempt to have the work resonate with the public. If you like, a target audience of 20: the cannes jurors)

I’m perfectly ok with experimental and proactive work, provided the client is happy to put their name to it, and provided the intent is there for the target audience to actually connect with the work in some way.

We NEED the weird and the wonderful, the crazy shit that hardly ever comes out of the ‘proper’ process, at shows. As Greenberg says, this work can show the way forward.

But the right intent needs to be there.

Let me give an example from Australia, from this year’s Cannes Lions to illustrate my point (and no, I don’t work at TBWA Sydney, although I know and respect many of the people there)

TBWA Sydney made a suit for MJ Bale with a credit card chip in the sleeve… they only made a few suits (i think) and it was clearly designed to appeal to juries. BUT, it was also designed to generate PR coverage for the MJ Bale brand (which it did) and the first time I saw the idea was in a general newsfeed, rather than at Cannes.

This work is opportunistic and award-friendly for sure, but also had at its core something with the potential to positively influence the MJ Bale brand in Australia. And a less inspired agency or marketer may look at this experimental work and see something in it that they may adapt for themselves, on a bigger or more mainstream scale.

But print work that is hidden in an obscure publication that runs to a tiny audience the day before deadline, that everyone keeps quiet about and doesn’t really want the world to see (and we all know what print work I’m talking about)… that, my friends, is pure scam and moves our industry forward not one iota. In fact, anyone who is inspired by this kind of work is an idiot and should probably find a time machine somewhere and dial in Singapore 1990, and get the hell back there.

There’s some sensible debate on this topic thanks to mumbrella, but also a lot of knee-jerk stuff from people who seemingly think that only work that sells should win.

And for anyone who’s been to Cannes, they’ll know that all the talk at the festival is about campaigns that create the most oxygen for themselves… that seek to transcend the industry and become part of popular culture. Campaigns that seek to generate the maximum amount of exposure for the brand or message, and become a part of the world we live in. That is, work that seeks to shine a light on the brand and become world famous amongst real people, rather than hide in the shadows and whisper to 20 people in the jury room.

No-one there talks about print lions, because no-one really cares.

Cannes isn’t illegitimate. Awards absolutely have their place. But people need to exercise a little discretion and judgement themselves, to separate the wheat from the chaff. There’s a bloody big difference between winning a gold lion in print for an ad that no-one saw, and an integrated or titanium lion for a campaign that resonated around the nation, or indeed the world.

And really, you shouldn’t need the good people of Mumbrella to show you the difference. Not if you earn your living in this industry.

your decision is the logical and consistent action to take after the articles and findings of the last few weeks. But…..

are you stopping at Cannes? Do you really believe that agencies/clients are only fabricating, exaggerating, embellishing, amending entries for those awards?

Surely this increased scrutiny needs to be extended to the awards circuit and
industry in general. Including….

– media schedules and proof of exact execution for creative work for all the other awards entries around the world?
– balance sheets and P&Ls from agencies in the ‘results’ sections of their AoY submissions?
– creative and media agencies to actually show the raw sales/tracking/brand data when they submit effectiveness papers

If the goal is to pursue transparency and greater integrity for awards entries, we’re still at the thin end of the wedge here.

well done Tim

Re Adguy
Let’s not get all xenophobic here. The early pioneers who started scamming in Singapore weren’t all brits.
Like a gang rape, they were joined by opportunistic Aussies, Kiwis and Yanks too.
Keeping up the local end were Droga’s Singapore boys.
If you check the award annuals in the late 90s, you will find such gems as ads for flea marts and a TVC for Starbucks which never ran or got approved.

John T had we been to the pub? Had a hard day? Never mind think of the time you will save not reading Mumbrella so you can be even more creative….

Its unlikely that we will participate in Cannes going forward nor fund staff or client trips.

The response from Cannes and Terry, whom we have been great supporters of in the past, was complicit and insulting to the communications industry.

What I do know is as a design graduate myself many years ago is that we leave college having never considered celebrating cheating an an achievement nor that we need to cheat to be recognised. This generational hand down from senior creative to junior creative needs to stop. Many in the creative industry genuinely believe that they have achieved when cheating, a brain washing of sorts – a systemic behaviour cognitively reinforced year after year by the leaders within creative agencies. Not unlike the Hitler Youth brought up to believe that wrong was right, that evil deeds were good and that an end justified the means – groomed and turned into professional soldiers often happy to kill without remorse.

Creative Agency CEOs and ECDs who are all very aware of this need to bring honour and realism back to the creative industry or risk the complete erosion of credibility which sadly is already at an all time low.

Creatives – stop grooming the kids coming through! Stop the rot.

Thanks for taking a stand and publicly conveying your brutal honesty on this topic Tim. The reality is that this is how agencies have managed entires in the past and we can’t change what is already done, but we can influence the future behaviour and behave with more integrity delivering real business results, with campaigns of scale not just the insightful creative alone.

Great work.

What I find most interesting and notable by its absence are comments or opinions from Australia’s creative agency CEOs or ECDs. No Todd Sampsons and so forth. The intensity of the scam discussion over this last few weeks will of course have drawn the interest and risk management planning of all creative agencies yet no agency leader has had the composure or strength of mind to put their opinion or official agency policy on record.

I don’t mean to pick on Todd, he is better achieved than most and has my respect but why in the face of such controversial conversation have the top agency leaders chosen to keep their heads down. Its very telling.

My open question to creative agency CEOs and ECDs is simply:
1. Do you intend to take a stand against dishonesty and cheating or;
2. Will you continue to embrace it, encourage it and reward those who cheat?

Would love to hear from at least one …

kudos Mumbrella

@Jale

M&C Saatchi CEO James Leggett penned a piece against scam about a week or two after Cannes for Adnews.

AdGuy nailed it. Everyone knows print is irrelevant. That’s not to say, however, that someone could do an amazing print or outdoor ad that generates millions of dollars worth of PR.

In fact, Tim, as you may recall, Best Job In The World won it’s Titanium / shiny thing based on the fact that classified ads were their only paid media.

And I’m certain they only ran once too. Anyway, that’s another topic of conversation about how the viral effect and PR legitimises what would otherwise pass as scam, and it’s a modern way to market to people.

Trust me, I’ve done it. And it’s very effective.

As someone who’s won more than enough awards for legitimate reasons, I hate to see Cannes being cheapened this way. I’ve won metal through grating my knuckles bare on real jobs, blood, sweat, weekends and a bucket of tears thrown in. It’s tough to get a client on board with your vision.

It’s even tougher to get them on board with something great, when marketing directors seem to think ‘risk averse’ is safer than having a point of view, putting a flag in the sand or drawing a line and saying what you stand for. And the best advertising has an opinion. It does stand for something.

But to be honest, Tim, the only time I’ve been genuinely stoked in my career is when you get a call from the client either saying ‘stop running the ad because we’re selling too much stuff’ or ‘we increased market share by bazookaloads%’

And that’s me, a creative, saying that.

And I’m sure there are many more creatives who think that nothing is better than doing something that worked. Nothing. And if that something wins awards, great.

It’s a shame to let one or two rotten print ads spoil every other piece of genuine work that’s won there. And a shame to sully a client and agency who have received the highest accolade for advertising, the Cannes Effectiveness Lion.

No, I don’t work there, but I have one of those too.

On a final note, as a former editor of a respected printed magazine, surely, you, of all people, know how relevant print is to the marketplace these days.

All print is scam. But not all Cannes is print.

Hats off to you & the team Tim for taking this stance & sticking to your guns. Integrity like this is to be respected.

Excellent article, Tim, and I respect your stance. Couldn’t agree with you more.

Marie

Let’s just legitimise scams and make Cannes one big pissing contest by allowing anyone to enter any genius idea they’ve ever had for any client whether it ever ran or not or whether they or their agency have ever held the account. It’d be a bit like everyone at the Olympic Games freely taking whatever performance enhancing drug they like, and just as unedifying.

There are things about Mumbrella that shit me to tears; this expose of scam ads isn’t one of them. More strength to your arm, Tim.

So no comments from Tim on the fact that most ad agencies in Australia are now treating Mumbrella like a leper? (I bet this comment doesn’t make it past moderation)

@Agency Jesus Most people I talk to about this issue are on Team Mumbrella. Not only was this campaign fairly handled (okay apart from briefly naming the actual creatives credited but that was quickly deleted), but it succeeded in devaluing the tainted lions and the tactics of at least two agencies here in Sydney.

Terry Savage came out of it looking pretty silly as well with his comparison of a one off ad in a suburban paper to the Super Bowl.

So Mumbrella might lose a few press releases and a couple of entries into their own awards in the short term.

I think their credibility in this pursuit has been appreciated by most fair-minded industry people.