Ban scam agencies from awards shows like sport bans doping stars – says Sir John Hegarty
Agencies involved in creating scam work should be banned from advertising awards shows in the same way that professional athletes are prevented from participating in sporting competitions when they have been caught taking drugs, adland legend Sir John Hegarty has told Mumbrella.
Putting scam on a par with doping, the BBH co-founder said: “Scam is my bête noire. I think it’s a tragedy and I liken it to drugs in sports. If we don’t kick this habit, we will undermine the awards that we have.
“Shows have got to be more proactive in how they weed out scam and how they penalise those that create it. They should say to agencies, if you do that [scam] you will not be able to enter for the next three years.”
Asked if the volume of scam work was dropping off due to awards shows tightening up entry criteria and judging processes following a number of high-profile scandals that exposed fake work in recent years, he replied: “No, it’s still the same. What are we doing? It’s making a laughing stock of the industry.
“Just ban them. But they won’t do that because it’s a money-making machine. They are killing our industry and killing creativity. The Tour de France had to come down very heavily on drug cheats and we have got to do the same. We need to view scam like it is a drug.
“The way our industry will get better is when better people do better work and better clients see it so that they say ‘wow, why don’t I have a bit of that – it really did work’.”
Pointing to the revival of television, which had been written off by many as a dead medium, as proof that an industry could reinvent itself – Hegarty said: “Television has been revived because it invested in better writing and better directors.
“That’s what we need to do in our industry. But if, instead, we are doing scam that nobody sees then it is doing nothing to help us.
“The television industry has moved forward because people have seen great programming and gone ‘god, I could do that’. So that’s why I get on my high horse about this issue.”
Dean is the general manager at Mumbrella Asia. He is an experienced British journalist, who has worked in a number of international markets including Singapore, Australia, Dubai, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. As well as his media work, he is also a published academic.
Come on Sir John, be reasonable now.
ReplyHe’s absolutely right of course. Cheats should be exposed, shunned and banned. But it will never happen as long as award organisers keep accepting their entries. Which, as commercial enterprises, they will continue to do. There is simply zero integrity in this shallow industry.
ReplySorry Sir John
ReplyYou are the only white sheep of the flock.
The black sheep have taken over.
Thank goodness clients aren’t swayed as easily as insecure and impressionable juries.
Alternatively the industry could stop wasting countless hours judging by voting with a decline to support until this is cleaned up.
ReplySir is absolutely right.
But industry or award lobby won’t take it or get it.
If you ban scam agencies then you have to ban 80 percent of the industry. The whole print/poster section will be banned. Most of the fake case studies (where the intelligent JURY will only see a nice looking edited video-fake visualitions-maniplulated-happend in one place-seen by 5 people-may be costlier video than the actual ad) will be banned. Some random technology or some doing good for world kind of things will be banned. Can’t understand for NGOs or trying to do good kind of client, how massive/expensive adverting solution is affordable. Then activation has many loop holes – Jury falls for it – the case video. Some guy few days back given a lecture on how to make case video bullet proof. So the irony is rather making the ad good or effective legends are teaching how the make case video great. funny!
Can the industry and shows face the truth?
ReplyOR when P&G will sacks all of them and will make a in-house real ad agency then they will get it?
Might as well shut down Cannes and people like [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines], who built their entire career on fake awards.
ReplyHave your say