"They’re like performance-enhancing drugs."
Ben Welsh, executive creative director, M&C Saatchi
An award-winning scam ad can get you a new job, earn you a pay rise and get your career going. They’re our industry’s equivalent of per-formance-enhancing drugs, but unlike the Olympics there’s no pen-alty for scamming and it’s very hard to know if someone has scammed.
In the past 12 months I’ve judged at Cannes, AdFest and Caxtons. The scam factor of a number of ads was discussed at each. At AdFest, I was amazed at the number of full-page colour ads there were for high-lighters, torches, superglue and lax-atives, but all were certified so they were presumably bona fide.
Just before the Caxtons I came across four postage stamp-sized ads for bubble gum in The Manly Daily. These could only have been run to enter awards. Fortunately they didn’t appear, but other ads did – I wouldn’t be surprised if the entries cost more than the media budget.
International award shows are becoming increasingly profitable business ventures so they don’t do as much as they could to judge work with media budgets to stop scams.
The best that can be said of scam ads is they push the boundaries. The only way to stamp out scam ads is to have clients buy some great work.
"They’re no better than drugs cheats."
Nigel Dawson, creative director, Grey Worldwide
It’s interesting this question is being asked as Beijing 2008 is in full swing. As one watches another impossibly sculpted body perform another superhuman feat on its way to gold, one wonders whether it’s a genuine athlete or a scam athlete.
Wilful creators of scam ads are no better than drug cheats. Both are driven by an unhealthy obsession with gold at all costs. Both will do anything possible to mask their deceit. Both deserve to be pilloried when uncovered.
Scam ads are a blight on our profession. I have never felt, let alone succumbed to, the temptation. When you open an award book you can smell a scam. Fortunately these days most find their way into the ambient section, which appears to have a licence to scam.
Scamming is a puerile insult to our clients who pay us to sell their goods and services, not our own so-called cleverness. There’s nothing clever about finding a home for a crappy little pun created without a brief and no client. Far better to run the race and finish an honourable runner-up, than win gold with shame pumping through your veins.
"Short-sighted clients break your heart."
Parris Mesidis, creative director, Showpony Advertising
Every creative has gone through the heartbreak of having a short-sighted client shut down a concept that was destined to win a swag of international awards and secure them a place in the annals of advertising history forever.
So why bother with the rigours of that kind of scrutiny? Why not just skip the whole sordid process and place the ad yourself?
For me, scam ads are the province of those who are incapable of dealing with the challenges of
real world advertising and as such they aren’t really representative of any meaningful creative capability.
The risk that comes with affording scam ads any level of industry accolade is that it rewards creative based on nothing other than gratuitous self-promotion.
As an industry, what we need to be encouraging and rewarding is innovative creative with a purpose; creative that resolves real world problems and delivers up results for our clients.
"Is it like sex without love?"
Grant Rutherford, creative director, DDB
I may have succumbed to the late night ice-cream in the freezer temptation. I may have succumbed to the Victoria’s Secret underwear catalogue temptation, but I have never succumbed to the advertising scam temptation.
What’s the point? Is it like sex without love? Is it like having beauty without the brains? The lure of awards is intoxicating, but gen-erating work for a condom shop without a strategy, business imp-erative, client buy-in or approval is pretty damn hollow.
But an ad made for a client as a proactive initiative to further their business objective that is on brand and on brief isn’t a scam. Who pays for what and when has to be in collaboration with the client. It’s called “being creative”. Isn’t that what we are here for, to be creative on behalf of our clients? I don’t mind my department coming up with proactive ideas. But it’s the big, hairy marketing problems and business objectives I like them to concentrate on in an equally creative way.
Opportunities may come from the most unlikely brief. But hell Mr Scamofile, I don’t mind if you build your house or you career on scams. It’s pretty shaky ground and your clients will end up in my house.
"Kill off the carriers of scam."
Neil Mallet, creative partner, Marmalade
Have I succumbed to the scam ad mentality? No. But of course, it would be an insanely brave creative who stood up and said: “I am a scammer and I’m proud.” This is not something to celebrate.
A scam is defined as “a scheme for making money by dishonest means”. And ultimately that is the goal of those who deceive in this manner. They are out to win awards, to promote their profile and be offered jobs they don’t really deserve.
If this work is recognised and awarded as legitimate, then of course it damages the industry. Awards are to celebrate real work, for real clients that have a real effect in the market – work that breaks new ground, while achieving an agreed commercial objective.
What other possible reason could we have for celebrating advertising? “I’m so clever. I did an ad with no client so I made the logo small. Where’s my award?” Our relevance as an industry must be questioned if we continue to award what amounts to fake work.
The solution? Kill off the carriers of the scam pandemic. If we shot a few, or had the odd burning at the stake, we would see a decrease. Extreme, but we would see a distinct reduction in this irrelevant work.
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