Was Ali Shabaz moved on because of I Sea saga? Don’t you believe it
It was argued in the days following his departure from the Asia operation of Grey Group that the writing had been on the wall for Ali Shabaz ever since the agency’s I Sea app was exposed for what it was; a sham.
But that wouldn’t be true.
The writing had not been on the wall at all. Why? Simple really. Scam was, and continues to be tolerated, encouraged even if it scoops awards.
Had Grey Group genuinely thought their Southeast Asia chief creative officer had erred in overseeing a shonky app purporting to help stricken migrants, he would have been moved on months ago.
He wasn’t. Furthermore, Shabaz, despite his exit from Asia, is remaining with Grey after being handed the chief creative role vacated by Mike Shackle in the Middle East.
Hardly the act of a company looking to hold him to account for last year’s embarrassment when it was forced to hand back its Cannes Lion won for I Sea.
On the contrary, Grey made it perfectly clear what they thought of its award winning work being rubbished in an extraordinarily petulant statement in which it blamed anonymous bloggers for daring to raise questions about the app’s functionality.
But that is water under the bridge. And my Mumbrella colleague Alex Hayes dealt with Grey’s tantrum in an excellent piece back in July.
What will be argued, and it’s not without merit, is that Grey waited for the furore to subside before quietly easing Shabaz out of the door in Asia.
Leaving it a few months would temper suggestions his departure was linked to the fanciful claim that Grey’s ill-conceived migrant-rescuing app could save lives. Had there been a hasty exit it would have been open acknowledgment that I Sea was, indeed, a huge mistake.
But a mistake is plainly not how the agency saw it back then, and it’s not how it sees it now.
More likely, and this was also suggested to me by a source close to Grey, is that Shabaz’s work over the past few months has not been regarded as award-winning standard.
That’s not to say his work did not solve problems for clients. It may well have done. It was the lack of standout ideas that is said to have been at least partially behind his relocation to Dubai.
The two approaches of advertising – producing effective work on one hand, and work which is going to catch the eye of judges – are often palpably different.
I know which approach I would prefer as a marketer. But as we all know, the advertising industry is not short of an ego or two, both individually and agencies as a collective, who crave recognition and parade their trophies like strutting peacocks in the hope it will impress their peers and draw in star-struck clients.
Are brands and marketers really so shallow and naive to be taken in by awards? Is that their measure of a successful agency?
So intense is this quest – some may call it an obsession – to create the award-winning Big Idea that it was suggested Shabaz, and others, are put under intolerable pressure to produce such work.
In short, accountability lay not just at the door of the creatives themselves but in the culture of the agency, to such an extent that it clouds the judgment of reasonable people and leads to ill-conceived ideas designed solely to resonate with juries. I Sea is one such example.
What is startling is the inability of agencies to recognise how wrong this is.
Scam, plagiarism, shonky, unworkable apps. It is indefensible, particularly when it relates to extraordinarily sensitive issues such as desperate migrants fleeing regions ravaged by conflict.
I have no doubt Grey blames the media, as well as the aforementioned bloggers, for daring to expose scam work. Of course, the media often cops the rap. It will be forever thus.
Be that as it may, it would be heartening if some of the comments about Shabaz’s departure from Asia were true. Namely that Grey felt it necessary to move him on after conceding, internally at least, that I Sea was a monumental disaster and a morally bankrupt idea.
I’m just not sure that’s the case.
And as long as pressure remains on creatives to produce work with awards the end game, scam will continue.
Steve Jones is regular contributor to Mumbrella in Australia and Asia having held the title of chief reporter for several years. He is a journalist with more than 30 years experience and has worked for a number of consumer and trade titles in the UK and Australia
There is a much larger problem here at Grey even today when Nirvik was promoted to lead an additional region while being on the front lines supporting this app. Even telling people at Grey in an all-hands meeting after Cannes that the media was at fault and there was no way Grey would give back the award to a room full of silent and defeated Grey folks. True Story!
Furthermore, the former CD on the project that was involved in several scam projects here at Grey was forced out and somehow magically got a SVP role in Chicago. I bet her references at Grey forgot to mention how she single handily brought down the morale of our entire creative team with her stunts and how she treated the team.
Grey was one of the top agencies in this region. Until the top brass of this agency is actually replaced, you are 100% correct – nothing will change.
Oh – and don’t forget the role of the “Grey Global Creative Council”. Despite the fact they denied knowing anything about i-sea, the team pushed that app and continues to push work globally to stack up those Lions and Spikes and Pencils. Oh my!
Reply“…was also suggested to me by a source close to Grey, is that Shabaz’s work over the past few months has not been regarded as award-winning standard.”
Scam creates paper tigers…a few flashy pro bono projects done without any real world parameters look ok. But pin up the day to day work of any asia based ECD or CCO and you’d think you are looking at the work of a middle-weight recruit.
Why?
1. Real briefs come with a multitude of things to be processed into a great idea. Data, consumer research, insights, competitive activity etc
Scam starts with nothing. Usually they pick a category they want to win in first, then they think of an execution, then they find a client. Bass ackwards, so to speak.
2. The Ali’s of this world forget that the real job of a CCO is to nurture creative people. To teach them the ropes so well that one day they themselves are not needed. Right now, they couldn’t give a damn…they don’t take the time to critique work consistently so people learn consistently. “Push it”, “Do some more” seems to be the limit of their instruction.
3. For a delicate period of the last 10-12 years, when there was no mumbrella to check, there was nothing but scam going on. This resulted in the wrong kind of individuals being recognised as “creative” and being promoted to the top jobs. These people have done nothing of note but scam, so they are not professionally equipped to engage clients intelligently. So clients treat them not as allies, but servants. There are two distinct camps of creatives today. The so called scammers who think of themselves as highly creative. And the donkeys who do big budget, dull as ditchwater work on huge cosmetics and pharma accounts.
As a footnote, I wouldn’t be too relaxed if I was the new CCO of Grey Middle East. It is a well known corporate strategy to transfer someone to another market before easing them out permanently.
ReplyMumbrella, for all the good work you do, please stop harping on this needlessly. Sure, this may be the cut throat ad world, but someone is going to get hurt and you don’t want blood on your hands.
ReplyLately I haven’t been a fan of Mumbrella but you’re wrong to ask them to leave this one alone.
“Scam, plagiarism, shonky, unworkable apps.”
The app was a total sham, one PNG square of a piece of ocean served to every single person who looked at the app. And this app was submitted to Cannes as an outstanding piece of work, worthy of accolades. Somehow, it won but that’s another story (worth exploring).
If someone gets hurt, they themselves have drawn the knife and been behind it when plunging it in. The blood will be on the hands of the instigator, criminal and victim. Not Mumbrella.
ReplyMumbrella please move on. We all know it was a disaster. Everyone learned a lesson or two, now it’s 2017, there are more productive ways to build this industry together rather than discussing things like this unnecessarily forever. Seriously.
ReplyCame across quite an amazing line in the article above:
“It was the lack of standout ideas that is said to have been at least partially behind his relocation to Dubai.”
Wonder what this says to clients of the Dubai operation: we’re sending him to work on your business since his ideas aren’t standout?
I think this guy could have weathered the storm if he had even ONE piece of good real work to show for his 12 years at the top. But there was nothing. Qatar Air, Sentosa, HSBC, GSK….nothing. Well, nothing real anyway.
What should really send chills down any clients spine is that at least 4 people who reported to him during his “award winning” time at JWT are now at the CCO/ECD level. They all got there due to the same beliefs as his.
ReplyIt’s a shame that Ali is getting the guff…I don’t think anyone in a senior position in an agency here in Singapore has not had the deluded conversation with the agency head about winning awards. And then the next thing you know, 2 months later you figure out what the ECD has been working on whilst neglecting client work. SAD!
ReplyThanks for following up on this. Shining a light on this industry. It is one of the things I like best about Mumbrella.
ReplyBig game poaching comes to mind (a recipient of a few scam ads itself over the years). You can hunt down the poachers and take away their weapons – and probably should. But big change only happens when you reduce market demand. Wake up people. Creative awards are a fundamentally unreliable currency. Some brilliant work wins, some rubbish work wins and a lot of cheats win. Only a complete fool would use gongs alone to measure individuals, agencies or ideas.
Reply“…big change only happens when you reduce market demand.”
Im not clear about what Fishlock means when he says ‘market demand’. Who is the market for scam ads? We can rule out consumers and clients. That leaves only the very top local, regional and global management of an agency, as it gives them PR mileage. LIke the sign in the lobby of Grey Singapore which said “most awarded agency at cannes” or some similar drivel.
Sadly, CEOs of agencies, headhunters and HR departments don’t have what it takes to evaluate a creative’s portfolio. They simply don’t know how to process the contents. That is why it is far easier for them to just look at awards, as opposed to creative ideas that sell a lot of product. So it will be a currency for a long time to come….unless clients make it clear that they only care about awards won for the right work and the right reasons.
ReplyScammers like this need to be pulled out like weeds…they make us all look bad in front of clients. Have you ever presented to a client and watched their faces? They have that neutral inscrutable look….then after you finish, they smile and say we’ll get back to you. That is the reaction of someone who doesn’t respect ad agency people.
And why should they? Scammers come to them with lots of awards on paper but when it comes to the real work they function like amateurs. Can someone like that be trusted, much less liked?
ReplyWill be interesting to see what happens when the Dubai trade websites pick up this story. Cant imagine the reception this bloke will walk into. Will his own creatives respect him? What about clients? I don’t know what the senior management of this agency is smoking but it is strong stuff.
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