Scam Ads

Prompted by yesterday’s post, I’m following up on a thread which mentioned Scam Ads- campaigns that agencies create for the express purpose of winning at award shows. There are minimum placement standards for any ad that is entered and often agencies will convince their client to, at the very least, agree to run an ad in this minimum way (for eg: one billboard in a small town for a week). The client may never commit to the work as a mass campaign but will tolerate (or even encourage) an award-show eligibility.

As someone who has worked on campaigns that could certainly be considered award-show driven, I can say its a fantastic gig for an Art Buyer. By definition, these campaigns feature great creative and no client. But I agree that, much like photographers putting spec or fake ads in their books, this is ethically shifty, though for slightly different reasons.

Because I’m feeling under the weather, I’m going to let Matt Morin at The Dog & Pony Show walk us through a very recent Scam Ad:

Courtesy Dog & Pony Show

I posted on the apparent scam ads for Play Doh from Singapore a few days ago and promised to try and get a comment from parent company Hasbro. Well, it didn’t take long. Wayne Charness, SVP of Corporate Communications just responded to me. Part of his response is here:

We became aware of these Play-Doh “advertisements” about a week ago and had many of the same questions you had. In our research we discovered that the campaign was created by a Singapore-based advertising agency, not employed by Hasbro, as a creative awards submission.

We also found out that an individual within Hasbro Singapore made the unfortunate decision to approve a one time use of the ads without going through the proper channels. Thankfully we discovered it in time and while we could not stop the fake ad from being placed one time in a magazine, we were able to stop it from being submitted for any awards.

More importantly as a result, we are putting in place a global policy to help ensure an issue of this nature does not occur again.

It’s great to see Hasbro step up and address the problem quickly. By cutting off ads like this from award shows, they’re taking big steps to stop the incentive for scam. With award shows coming at it from one end and clients attacking it from the other, maybe they’ll put a dent in it. Again, big props to Hasbro for taking this issue seriously.

I also found this response to Matt’s post insightful:

….So, basically are they saying that Hasbro in X country said yes, and now they have new rules in place preventing non-US Hasbro from saying yes to anything without first checking with US HQ? That’s what I’m getting from it, and a nightmare approval process in the future for any global brands. Might as well close local shops that serve global brands now then. We will all be doing adaptation in the future…

Matt is also quoted in the New York Times in an article about the recent DDB WWF 9/11 debacle:

The majority of advertising people want to get fake ads out of the award shows,” Mr. Morin said. “Creating an ad under the constraints of client-business needs — what a client will accept or not accept — that is much more difficult than coming up with some crazy creative ideas. Everyone in this business is super-creative. With no restrictions, anyone in advertising could come up with ideas like this.

This last point is what galls me the most about Scam Ads.

For more on how the One Show is dealing with this runaway train, read more here. And for Forbes’ take on it, go here.