Cannes Lions-winning Guinness Singapore press campaign ran once in free listings magazine
A press campaign for Guinness in Singapore that won Lions at Cannes last month ran once in a local listings magazine, Mumbrella can reveal.
The campaign, which uses Picasso-esque illustrations to promote Guinness draught in a bottle, won three silver Lions in the press category.
It was published in a single edition of I-S Magazine.
Five executions of the campaign featured in the April 25 – May 8 2014 issue of I-S Magazine – just before the deadline for Cannes submissions. To be eligible for this year’s Lions, work had to be published between March 1 2013 and April 30.
The sales team at I-S magazine confirmed the single booking with Mumbrella today. Five quarter square ads would have cost around S$3,750 (US$3,020) in total, or S$750 each. A PDF version of the edition featuring the award-winning campaign can be viewed here.
BBDO Singapore was the creative agency behind the campaign, which picked up silver Press Lions in the alcoholic drinks, illustration and art direction subcategories.
The enquiry was triggered by comments from Mumbrella readers. One wondered why a campaign to remind Singapore’s beer drinkers about draught Guinness in a bottle required five different posters to do so, suggesting that the work had been created to win awards, not for the benefit of the brand – a practice known as “scam”.
BBDO, which confirmed the press campaign’s media run, claims that ‘Pint in a glass’ was a follow-up to the original launch of Guinness draught in a bottle in Singapore that took place in early 2013.
The marketing director for Guinness, Asia Pacific Breweries’ René de Monchy, confirmed this, telling Mumbrella: “No, this was not an agency initiative. The agency was briefed by us in the last quarter of 2013 to create a follow-up campaign to ‘GDIB [Guinness Draught in a bottle] Smoothest Launch’.”
The Cannes rules stipulate that entries must be approved and paid for by the client, and run in media space paid for by the client.
The ‘Pint in a glass’ creative performed even better in the Outdoor Lions than in press, claiming gold and silver Outdoor Lions. The campaign won gold for craft and silver in the ‘indoor posters’ category of the Outdoor Lions as an in-bar/point of sale initiative, which ran in the month of December 2013.
The first phase of the Guinness Draught in a bottle campaign that ran in early 2013 took a very different tack, using traditional out-of-home and visibly larger spend. Billboards featured large bottles made of mock-velvet to dramatise the smoothness of Guinness draught in a bottle.
That iteration of the campaign helped BBDO gain recognition as the most effective agency in Asia at the AMEs and APAC Effies this year, with the campaign helping to reverse declining marketshare for Guinness, according to the agency’s awards submission.
The ‘Pint in a bottle’ creative executions were part of a large haul of 35 Lions across 10 categories that helped BBDO win APAC network of the year at Cannes. Chris Thomas, BBDO’s regional chairman and CEO, singled out the campaign as the “highlight” of his agency’s achievements at Cannes in an article on Adobo magazine after the festival came to a close.
Cannes Lions is now investigating the eligibility of the campaign in both the press and outdoor categories.
The news emerges the week after Mumbrella’s Australian site discovered that a campaign for Johnson & Johnson by JWT Sydney that was shortlisted at Cannes had run once in a local parenting magazine, and a Lion-winning campaign for McDonald’s by DDB Sydney ran in a single edition of an obscure local suburban newspaper on the day of the Cannes submission deadline.
never met a client put his hand up for a print campaign to run on I-S magazine. Once.
ReplyIt’s how [edited by Mumbrella for legal reasons] made a name for himself.
ReplyIf you look back through the annuals you’ll see some amazing print work out of Singapore that won awards.
Thanks mumbrella for pursuing this and exposing cheats who try to bend the system and get their clients in on the scam as well. One can only counter these 2 bit scammers by denying them the respect they so desperately crave and are unwilling to earn the right way.
ReplyIS April edition always has some of the best ads. Seriously, wake up Terry and take away these lions because they are so obviously scam. What the most recent expose showed us is it is now the major brands that are resorting to scam to win. I’d love to know where DDB’s cycle shop ads ran.
ReplyAll of them running in one magazine quarter page? Seriously, you guys can put your names on the credit list and not be embarrassed? Who is the ECD there? He is the one who should be talking to the press and not hiding behind his many faux Lions. Singapore will you ever learn? Let’s all do the right then and give the medals back. Say your sorry, these were scam ads and move on to the next job brief in your tray today. Quarter page in IS Magazine…brill.
ReplyFollow up questions to be asked of BBDO/Client:
1. If it was a real campaign, why didn’t you continue to run it after 1 week?
2. If the media run has ended at one publication, was the passing of Cannes deadline related to the decision to stop advertising, or purely coincidental?
3. How many other briefs over the last 5 years did you put through to the agency and then run in just one publication?
4. How many other print campaigns over the last 5 years did you run many executions in one publication?
5. Was the timing related at all to the Cannes deadline?
6. If you had missed the Cannes deadline, would have you still run the campaign?
ReplyIf you dig a bit deeper you’ll find it’s more than press ads that are guilty of being scam, Mumbrella. There are some projects/ideas out there that have been agency funded for awards too.
ReplyMost of our agency has no idea where these ran, now we do so thanks Mumbrella. No job numbers, no media schedule is with the account people handling the business. If anything the account people are irritated that they have to hassle their clients with this now. And that’s the part that needs addressing. Just how far through the mud is an agency willing to drag their clients to “produce” a fake ad and win an award for it just so some creative boys can all put their name on it and get “famous” or get PROMOTED! Really, it is high time to face the music CCO and ECD and Interns. The agency and big titled creatives are unusually quite now yeah. Later when they get the invitations to judge more scam at other creative shows I am sure they will be very proud of themselves for getting away with it. Meanwhile, they keep asking us account people to push the deadlines on the real work. Which they only put in half the effort doing it appears. A very sad day for BBDO. We used to shun this practice. Now we are all ****ing embarrassed. Nice one boys.
R.S. Great questions!
ReplyBrought to us by the same scam geniuses behind Jeep. You couldnt take these guys to a high level client meeting or expect speak some advertising sense or do something respectable on a real brief, scam is all theyre good for.
You also need to investigate their online campaign for rising sea levels that also won a bronze lion (i think) at cannes…..type in your gps co-ordinates and watch it fill up with water….really?!
ReplyQuestion for everyone – does BBDO book the media themselves? Or does a media agency book them?
Are media agencies not doing their job correctly by only running campaigns once?
If the agency are satisfied the campaign has run and is eligible, is it up to them to decide that it has run in the best publication that is read by the correct target audience, or is that just another job media companies don’t do?
Do media agencies actually contribute anything these days apart from being a middle man?
ReplyIt is great to have a trade site that actually asks hard questions…. and holds the industry accountable…just like good journalism should. There are some other sites catering to creatives who have adopted a ‘dont ask dont tell’ approach to scam….sucking up to creatives while they pimp production companies and other services to them….i find your balanced views quite refreshing…keep it up Mumbrella.
ReplyThis is not advertising.
ReplyIts a wonder the ECDs name hasnt been changed to Ronald McDonald.
ReplyWell, at least BBDO bothered to run something. Some metals won by Asia claim regional reach, but its case studies reveal a new level of deceit, no, “craft”. Stock street footage with billboard posters digitally superimposed on, complemented by artfully directed shadows for the additional veritas touch. And these are real eye catching posters too, smack in the middle of Bangkok’s busiest roads, advertising Air Oil. Wait, except they never appeared anywhere else except the video that made it win. Curious, isnt it.
ReplyI’m sure, though, it has the client’s blessing.
ReplyNow, will the agency creative head speak up?
ReplyLet’s not be in denial here – the majority of the stuff at Cannes is scam. It has been for years. What’s with the surprise and ‘revelatory’ tone? We’ve all known this for ages! Sacrificing one or two agencies to the gods of outrage seems a little, hate to say it in this context, unfair. You could pick any award winning campaign from the region or the world (and a few of the ones that didn’t have enough PR to actually win), do a little digging, and find the same thing. How about an article showing how widespread it is? Devalue the metal. It’s the only way. Otherwise, this will just carry on, and get bigger, and uglier.
ReplyAgencies have been doing this for years. No it’s not great and I don’t support it but I would put good money that everyone that has commented on this article has/is working in an agency that has done scam work.
ReplyI think the creatives responsible for the work ought to wake up.
Your ECD and your agency’s report card looks good. But the actual people responsible for the work suffers.
Your reputation is tarnished. And the print ads don’t make your book look any better.
In today’s context, where does a questionable press campaign take you?
Can’t blame agency and agency heads completely when there are still minions willing to do the time and the crime.
As for Cannes, it won’t stop. Let’s just realise that it is a pointless argument as the $$ is what it is truly about.
ReplyGive the lions back Ronald and Prim. Take a bloody stand and give the Lions back and show some honesty for BBDO Singapore. We know you think there will be just a few more articles on this then you’re home free but you’re not. That’s why you read this shit every day looking for new posts. Now, everytime we pick up a copy of IS Magazine in January and April we will look for your ScamLion work. Which was most likely paid media by you. Don’t blow your bonuses on this shit anymore. Look where that got Y&R and Ogilvy. Even DDB cut it back because the costs were outrageous. Maybe Mumbrella should ring D&AD. They might have a better reputation for real work anyway. Terry, well, I think we know what side of the French alps his bread is buttered.
ReplyClearly the biggest problem BBDO has isn’t its creative credibility.
ReplyIt’s the schism within.
If these fault lines aren’t addressed, everyone suffers.
I guess its time for the key players to Man Up and send a clear signal to staffers and clients.
Business as usual-and the slippery path travelled by (the incredible shrinking) Y&R and Ogilvy?
Or the path or selective big brand, big media spend entries of (the big dog)-DDB?
Debussy said: “Give the lions back Ronald and Prim.”
No dont give them back..keep them….make them into tshirts or fridge magnet replicas as well. Hang onto them and tell everyone about them ….the whole world knows they are worthless now so who gives a guinness anyway?
ReplyJason, you are right, and well said. I stand corrected. Cheers. But they won’t talk to anybody, the cowardice in the silence is terrible. Stand up Malaysian boys. It is time to come clean! Ronald…Prim…JP? Anybody?
ReplyThis work looks so pathetic now. Hard to like it. I never thought it was Gold worthy to begin with. Not that this was a great year for Cannes with print anyway. The standard in Asia has slipped. Even the Thais are losing traction. Good luck to BBDO and their new client Guiness in entering next year.
ReplyOh man, I just see they had the balls to enter it. Somebody should give D&AD a call. Wonder if they got the same line of bull. They usually let a few scams slide, even bad ones to keep us in Asia interested.
ReplySo many pretentious fucks. I bet half the people who commented here have tried scamming but never won any. Creatives who don’t scams are usually lazy. Especially in Asia where clients tend to choose the safest, most boring options. Good luck winning with real work in Asia.
ReplyRe: Hardworking scammer
Done it with real clients.
In Asia.
Without scamming.
It ain’t easy.
But possible.
Just because you can’t doesn’t mean it can be done.
ReplyHardworking Scammer….LOL….isnt that an oxymorron…..may be it’s Hardlyworking Scammer….Im hardly working on our paying clients’ business these days because Im working on scam for my own private ends.
ReplyCongratulations to Mumbrella and its editors for putting up this thread.
ReplyThey have balls. Some scam ad winners have egos so bloated they can’t even write with real brief.
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