Scam ad scandals mar Asia Adfest

How far will advertising agencies go to win an award? In one category of the Asia Adfest, the competition was said to "have drawn the most scam entrants and judges said it was hard to distinguish real from genuine ads."

We stumbled into two articles online written by judges, on the recently concluded Asia Adfest in Pattaya:

"I don't think any of the work will win a gold at any major global award shows," said Tom Davidson, executive creative director of Wieden & Kennedy in London, who led the TV jury this year at AdFest. His opinion was echoed by many at the festival. No Best of Show awards were given in two major categories: TV and outdoor media.

"I was not impressed by the TV and print work and I have never seen as many scam ads as I've seen here," Mr. Davidson said in Advertising Age, referring to the practice of entering ads that are often very creative but haven't been approved by a client or run in paid media. "[Asia's creative industry] needs to sort that out. It makes us look stupid."

Alex Burnard, creative director of internationally awarded Crispin Porter Bogusky agency in Miami, says, "I had never seen so many scam ads in an awards festival like in Pattaya. It is really worrying and makes us look stupid. I don't want to be in an industry that does that."

Mark Sydney, creative director at Gavin McLeod Australia, says, "I have no idea how to judge it. I've never seen anything like it."

Burnard continues, "Scam commercials do not push the industry forward." Instead, here's what he suggests: "Do something that's different, that changes perceptions. What's a good roadmap if agencies give themselves more respect and that could take the industry forward," he declares.

The most stinging rebuke came from DDB New Zealand ECD Tony Talbot. Talbot who was also chair of last year's Australia national award show and D&AD jury member said: "Asia has a fantastic reputation for world-class print. Rightly or wrongly, it also has a reputation for doing world-class scam ads."

He advises: "Don't enter anything vaguely scammy as you'll be only doing more damage to the reputation of your industry." What he wants to see are "big ideas for real clients that actually ran the ad. Not another exquisite campaign for a model shop."

http://business.inquirer.net/money/feature...mar-Asia-Adfest

"It makes us look stupid."

Don't you hate it when the judges actually read the rules of the competition. Then they judge the competition by those rules.

Haven't they learned this is not the west, no matter how many worldwide competitions they have won or judged they should know things are different here!