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Questions over Aussie Cannes Lions entries for Panasonic and McDonalds – ‘scam’?

dogMcdQuestions have been raised over whether two Cannes Lions winning print advertising campaigns for the Australian divisions of major brands McDonalds and Panasonic are ‘scam’ advertising.

Mumbrella Australia has revealed, that creative agencies DDB and Saatchi & Saatchi in Australia, who won Cannes Lions for their print advertising campaigns at this year’s awards, have been unable to answer questions about where they ran.

Despite repeatedly questioning the agencies, their clients and Cannes Lions organisers have all avoided questions about campaigns which took out Bronze and Silver Lions.

Speculation about whether Panasonic’s campaign was scam advertising, which is advertising made simply for the purpose of entering it into advertising awards, intensified after its Australian media agency UM subsequently confirmed it did not place the ad which won the award.

In the wake of UM’s statement Richard Tassone director of consumer electronics group at Panasonic Australia told technology website ChannelNews that Panasonic Australia “did not publish this advertisement in Australia” adding: “we have put no TV commercials to air this year nor have we booked this campaign”.

In an interview with Mumbrella Asia advertising icon John Hegarty recently said that scam was a major problem across the wider region and in particular Asia would never be a dominant force in advertising if it did not cut out scam.

To read a summary of the scam controversy in Australia click here.

Update Monday 7 July

Cannes’s organisers has responded with a declaration that the ads are legitimate but that it was “not appropriate” to say where they were published.

Read the full story here. 

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