Showing posts with label Copy Cat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Copy Cat. Show all posts

5.7.10

Made of milk copycats



teethmilk99teethmilk2010
THE ORIGINAL?
Milk “Because you’re made of milk”– 1999
Source : Cannes Archive Online,
Agency : Almap/BBDO (Brazil)

LESS ORIGINAL :

Slovak association of Dairy – 
2010
Source :  Adsoftheworld
Agency : Jandl, Bratislava (Slovakia)

18.5.10

Stupid Copy Cat case!

Original by Micaela Trani and Antonio Gigliotti





Rip-off by Ben Tollett, Emer Stamp, Steve Wioland and Matt Woolner


The original shows the progress of a little girl to a brunette woman, soundtracked by 'Always a Woman'
courtesy of Billy Joel.


The rip-off, which Adam & Eve maintains is in no way influenced by the original, shows the progress of a little girl to a brunette woman (and beyond to old age) soundtracked by 'Always a Woman'. 

16.5.10

Climax-delay condom

Zensex condoms

Olla Prolong condoms 

With retardant
Advertising Agency: Mayo DraftFCB, Lima, Peru
Creative Directors: Germán Garrido, Ricardo Ortiz
Art Directors: Mariano Escobal, Camilo Astorga
Copywriter: Camilo Astorga
Illustrator: Zeppelin
Additional credits: David Vega
Published: November 2009

11.5.10

Same ... Same ...

Original 

Coca Cola | Open Happiness!








“Library” brings to life the silent flirtation of two teens connecting over a Coca-Cola® while studying in a quiet library. They pass the boring study time by using their ink pins to draw characters on their hands and arms. Theboy then draws a Coke® bottle on his arm and in response the girl pens a glass with ice cubes on hers. The drawings come to life as they reach across the table and touch hands as the now animated Coca-Cola pours out of the bottle drawing, down the guy’s arm onto the girl’s hand and into the glass she has drawn. They share a laugh. The spot reinforces how sharing a Coca-Cola connects people and brings a moment ofhappiness to an otherwise ordinary situation.


Advertising Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Creative Director: Jorge Calleja
Creatives: Gregg Clamptter, Agse Altinolc
Agency Producer: Elissa Singstock
Production Co: MJZ, London
Director: Tom Kuntz
Telecine: Seamus O’LKane/Paul Harrison
Lead Flame: Richard Roberts/Gary Driver
3D: Jamie Lancaster

Jan 28, 2009


Not so original 



McDonald's Happy Meal: Doodle




Advertising Agency: Leo Burnett, USA
Creative Director: Keith Hughes, Tony Katalinic, John Hansa
Art Director: Ryan Dillon
Copywriter: Dan Lewis
Photographer: Eric Faber
EP: Denis Giroux
May 10, 2010

17.4.10

It's a ZOO out there


bussnake2009bussnake2010
THE ORIGINAL?
Copenhaguen Zoo Ambient – 
2009
Source : 
Adsoftheworld, Fubiz,
Agency : Bates & Werksette (Denmark)
LESS ORIGINAL :
Le Choc des Titans / Clash of the Titans – Ambient –
2010
Source : via 
Paper-Plane 
Agency : Unknown,  (Paris, France)

by 

18.3.10

Skittles | brand with no senses

ORIGINAL 
Brand: Playstation 2

UNORIGINAL



Brand :Drench


Agency:
LONDON’S CHI & PARTNERS





UNORIGINAL


Advertising Agency: Impact BBDO, Dubai
Executive Creative Director: 
Oliver Maisey
Creative Directors: 
Jennie Morris, Jeremy Southern
Art Director: 
Andrej Arsenijevic, Mark Held
Copywriter: 
Darren McCall, Grant McGrath
Illustrator: 
Kosta Zdravkovic @ Whitewater Studios
Retoucher: 
Byju Ravindran
Other Credits: 
Ben Dover, Mike Hunt

2.3.10

CopyCat | An idea not so shiny| JWT (Morocco)




dentures2009
THE ORIGINAL?
Evonik Chemicals – 
05/2008
Claim : “who helps your teeth shine so white?”
Source : 
Adsoftheworld
Agency : KNSK Hamburg (Germany)
LESS ORIGINAL :
Trident “long lasting whiteness” – 
04/2009
Source : Cannes Archive Online
Agency : JWT (Morocco

5.2.10

Taboo Jeans


the original work


Diesel Jeans – 2005
Source : Luerzer’s International Archive,
Agency : Euro RSCG (France)






the copycat work 


























Taboo Jeans – 2009
Agency : Unknown (Lebanon)

5.11.09

Cannes Lions speaks out…finally


Statement From Cannes Lions On 'Scam' Entries
14 October 2009
Following detailed consultation and discussion with industry leaders, the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival wishes to make clear its policy on entries into its Festivals which breach the rules.

There are many definitions of “scam”, and the issue is rarely black and white. As such, we want to develop a policy that is not only workable but also enforceable.

The role of Cannes Lions and its associated Festivals (Eurobest, Dubai Lynx and Spikes Asia) is to set the benchmark for creativity in communications, to celebrate creativity and to reward the industry for outstanding creative work.

Our role is not to come between the client and the agency; it is not to have a negative material effect on agency business; and it is not to penalise individuals from an agency who have not had any association with the work in question. 

Our key rules in this regard are simple: “Entries cannot be made without the prior permission of the advertiser/owner of the rights of the advertisement. All entries must have been made within the context of a normal paying contract with a client. That client must have paid for all, or the majority of, the media costs.”

It is our policy that when a piece of work comes into question, we request clarification or further information according to the complaint raised. If it is not forthcoming or not adequate, we withdraw the award. 

In future we will continue to withdraw awards that do not meet our entry criteria and announce that we have done so. 

Our entry criteria include: 

- Submitting full client details (including name, position and full contact details)
- A senior officer (CD, CEO or Chairman) from the entrant company must authorise the entry 

Our checks include: 

- That the client is legitimate and that the product corresponds with their portfolio
- Judges are offered the opportunity to raise queries with the organisers and information is gathered accordingly throughout the judging (media schedules, client authorisation, etc.) 

We believe that banning agencies from entering on a wholesale basis is unfair on blameless individuals. There are many people who work in agencies who may not be involved with an erroneous entry and therefore should not be penalised. Our policy will be to ban the individuals named on the credit list if a scam is discovered. 

The length and nature of the ban will be decided based on the seriousness of the case involved. We take the view that not all issues are the same and each case should be dealt with on its own merits. 

In summary, the key issues which will guide us through this process are: 

1) Was the work approved and paid for by the client and was it run using media space paid for by the client? 
2) If an entry fails to meet this or other entry criteria, we will withdraw the award and make an appropriate announcement. 
3) If we deem it is required, we will ban the individuals involved from entering our awards for a specific period of time which will be decided at that time. 

- Ends -

For further information, please contact:
Amanda Benfell, PR & Press Manager 
Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
Greater London House, Hampstead Road, London NW1 7EJ, United Kingdom
Tel: +44-20-7728 4040; Fax: +44-20-7728 4044; 
E-mail: 
amandab@canneslions.com

15.10.09

Scam Ad Crackdown: Are the Awards Shows Wussing Out?





Award shows are getting tough on scam ads, but is it tough enough? Especially if two recent scam ad policies mean different shows have very different rules for scammers

The DDB Brasil WWF ad that provoked new ad show policies.
The DDB Brasil WWF ad that provoked new ad show policies.


The Cannes Lions Advertising Festival and the Art Directors Club today released policies to deal with scam ads—work submitted to the shows without client approval or that only ran once in little-seen paid media outlets. Outlining how it will handle offenders, Cannes stated it will only ban the individual creatives responsible for the faked work from entering work in the future, not their agencies.
"We believe that banning agencies from entering on a wholesale basis is unfair on blameless individuals," the Cannes statement said. "There are many people who work in agencies who may not be involved with an erroneous entry and therefore should not be penalized." From there, the length of the ban will be determined on a case by case basis. Emails to determine just exactly how this statement differs from Cannes' previous submission policy were not returned.
The Cannes policy takes a decidedly softer position than that of One Show, which implemented new rules in September after DDB Brazil's incendiary depictions of the 9/11 attacks in its "Tsunami" ads caused public backlash. The print ad has received a One Show merit award that has seen been rescinded. (It's important to note that One Show and the British awards show D&AD are non-profit operations, while Cannes is not.)
One Show's harsher stance means a five year ban for agencies submitting ads made for fake clients, without client approval or ads that have only run once or during late-night TV. And for all instances of fakery, the responsible creative will be banned for five years, too.





The Art Directors Club scam ad policy does not include bans at all; it will only trumpet fake work to the other top shows, especially since its awards come early in the season. With entries often submitted to multiple show, the ADC will simply let the Andy, Cannes, Clio, D&AD, One Show and Webby awards know when it's found a fake.
"The decision was that we will disqualify the work," said ADC chief executive Ami Brophy, adding the show hasn't made a statement of this type before, but thought one necessary after recent controversies sparked by the likes "Tsunami." "With regards to banning, our decision is rather to promote the behavior we'd like to see. Our approach is to stand together with the other shows and we will do our best to search scam ads out." The ADC's statement also pointed to its "Playground" category, launched four years ago as the place for non client-approved ads. Ms. Brophy also notes that the ADC rules resemble D&AD's "name and shame" policy.
DDB is hoping to root out scams even before they get to the awards juries. DDB Worldwide chairman Bob Scarpelli re-circulated the network's ethics code and outlined that the multi-office creative council will redouble its scrutiny of awards submissions, according to people familiar with the matter. The review process will include more thorough and brand new screening methods for entries.
With renewed attention to scam ads and these new guidelines running the gamut of accountability, do creatives think that these new guidelines will actually work? Or that they go far enough?



BBDO's David Lubars
BBDO's David Lubars

David Lubars, BBDO North America chief creative and chair of the Cannes press and film juries, thinks even the strictest new rules are necessary. "It's the right thing to do," he said. "I think it'll be a successful deterrent. A lot of times scam ads are obvious, but for when it's not clear, these are good guidelines for jury members."

Conversely, Lars Bastholm, Ogilvy's chief digital officer and the 2009 cyber jury chair at Cannes, finds One Show's penalties too steep. "Five years banned for the ECD in question?" he said. "That could be the end of a career. You'd have a hard time getting an agency to hire you after that." Though, he does think the next scammer caught under these new guidelines will send a message to the creative community. "If someone somewhere submits a fake ad and it gets out, the repercussions will become clear," he said. "That's when people will get it."
Since careers can be made and now potentially lost as a result of awards, Rob Reilly, partner and ECD at Crispin, Porter + Bogusky and ADC's hybrid award chair for 2010, finds the shows' definition of "scam ad" too loose. "We need one sharply defined way to categorize fake work across all shows," he said.



Crispin's Rob Reilly
Crispin's Rob Reilly

"There isn't enough we can do to stop scam ads," Reilly said. "But what needs to happen is to determine what qualifies as a scam ad." Reilly points specifically to ads that only run once, which is an often used tactic for making ads created specifically for awards consideration eligible for entry. While the One Show has identified a scam as an "ad that has run once, on late-night TV, or only because the agency produced a single ad and paid to run it itself," other scam ad policies have not been as clear. Cannes, on the other hand, acknowledges in its statement that "there are many definitions of 'scam,' and the issue is rarely black and white." It simply specifies clients must pay for media for ads to be eligible.
"But what about virals, ads that you put up on YouTube to see if they generate interest?" Reilly adds.
Last month, during the Spikes Asia Festival in Singapore, Cannes Lions Chairman Terry Savage could not conceal his concern about the decision by One Show, and was openly seeking input from the top regional and global creative execs about where the Cannes Lions should draw the line for its three festivals--Cannes Lions, Spikes Asia and the Dubai Lynx award for the Middle East.
While Mr. Savage is opposed to scam ads, he also said he was wary of banning whole agencies from entering awards because of the misdeeds of a few bad apples. "There are a lot of good people out there who shouldn't suffer because of someone else's mistake."
Ironically, Singapore, the setting for the Spikes event, of which Cannes became a co-organizer this year, has had one of the world's worst reputations for producing scam work for over a decade — a sad fact that has helped build the reputation of some of the world's top creatives today.
The Dubai Lynx also suffered a major scandal this year when the Agency of the Year had to return its awards after bloggers uncovered that most of them had been won for scam ads.



----------------------
We in the middle east have our own share of scam ads and ghost ads.. and it's been kind of a trend or basic practice by highly awarded creative networks. some samples for your reference: 

  • -http://advertiser-in-arabia.blogspot.com/2009/08/mbc-is-busted-ripping-off-tv-ads-ideas.html 
  • -http://advertiser-in-arabia.blogspot.com/2009/06/more-crapwe-had-to-tear-down-to-re.html 
  • -http://advertiser-in-arabia.blogspot.com/2009/09/good-bad-and-ugly-in-financial-ads.html 
  • -http://advertiser-in-arabia.blogspot.com/2009/08/tattoo-yourselflebanon-impact-bbdo-is.html 
  • -http://advertiser-in-arabia.blogspot.com/2009/08/tattoo-yourselflebanon-impact-bbdo-is.html 
  • -http://advertiser-in-arabia.blogspot.com/2009/08/new-dimension-of-advertising-is-simply.html

25.9.09

THE GHOST ADS OF CANNES

 Something vaporous and somewhat sinister lurks behind the dazzling sunlight, tans and hot creative so de rigeur on the French Riviera during the ad industry's hottest award festival that begins next week.
The ghost ads of Cannes also haunt the Palais du Festival,
Although it won a Chilean prize, this Suzuki ad -- showing a crowd ignoring a thrown rider to admire his toppled bike -- was never paid for by Suzuki or run anywhere.
and the Carlton and Martinez Hotels. Like it or not, fake or fudged entries have become so much a part of the awards scene at this and other festivals that the first word of Spanish many festival-going creative directors learn is "truchos," Spanish for scam ads. Brazilians, who are highly skilled practitioners, prefer to call them "fantasmas," or ghosts.
From Singapore to Sao Paulo, creative people have gone to amazing lengths to nab creative awards. Scam ads range from out-and-out fakes never approved by clients to ads that technically qualify because they ran once, sometimes at the agency's expense, simply to be eligible for ad shows.
It's prevalent enough that Cannes Jury President Bob Isherwood has already written to warn this year's Lions judges for the festival beginning June 18 that it is their duty to denounce any scam ads entered by agencies from their respective countries. Mr. Isherwood, an Australian who is the New York-based worldwide creative director at Publicis Groupe's Saatchi & Saatchi, is only too aware of the situation: Last year two Lion statuettes were sent back from his native country because the winning ads had never run and a third dubious winner was investigated by the festival. 
Although ad industry executives privately grumble that festivals like Cannes don't do all they can to weed out scam ads for fear of turning away entry fees, festival organizers have been shocked enough by last year's events to take some new measures.
Cannes festival Chairman Roger Hatchuel says it's now mandatory for the first time that a senior agency executive sign off on each entry, although no definition of senior executive is given, and no proof is necessary that an entry actually ran.
Favorite tricks 
Proof isn't foolproof, however. A favorite trick is for the agency, rather than client, to pay for an inexpensive media buy simply to qualify. "Sometimes an ad may have run in one medium on a very limited scale and it doesn't necessarily mean it's not a scam ad," says Romain Hatchuel, the festival's CEO and Roger Hatchuel's son. "A media invoice is not enough if the letter but not the spirit of the rule is complied with."

So this year, the Hatchuels made a last-minute decision to send all judges, in advance, a list of the Cannes entries from their respective countries and ask them to review the print and TV work. Roger Hatchuel says he hopes they will then consult the ad community in their own countries and give Mr. Isherwood a list of dubious ads when they arrive.
He admits it's not a perfect solution. "It's happened before that a [Cannes] judge will say 'I'm not a cop.' My answer to that is it's not playing cop for us. It's trying to 
self-discipline everyone for the sake of the industry. It's not 100%, but it's going in the right direction."
A scam category 
In Chile, the attitude is a lot more resigned toward bogus entrants. There, Sergio Rosenbaum O'Brien, president of the Chilean Association of Advertising Agencies, and his fellow compatriots have hit upon an innovative solution to the widespread problem of agencies crafting ads just to enter in award shows. Rather than asking judges to turn in their peers, which they are often reluctant to do, the Chileans added a category for scam ads to their national awards show last December, so agencies can openly and proudly enter their fake work. The category is called simply "Free Expression," says Mr. Rosenbaum, who is also general manager of WPP Group's J. Walter Thompson Chilena in Santiago.

"It was a very emotional and tense issue," he says. "Rather than have every category invaded by truchos, we created a new category. You shouldn't have clients and their budgets competing with ads with no client or budget. We're trying to be fair."
The genius of the Chilean approach was to also have an eight-person committee examine entries in all the other categories before the judging. Then the agency association writes polite letters informing entrants of suspect ads that their work would be reclassified into the Free Expression category unless they provided proof it had run. Lots of work abruptly switched categories, Mr. Rosenbaum says. Of 797 entries, 96 were in the Free Expression category.
In one of Omnicom Group's DDB Worldwide's less-publicized creative victories, Zegers DDB in Santiago picked up the Gold in the Free Expression category, for a print ad that was never run or approved by Suzuki. At the scene of an apparent accident, a group of onlookers cluster anxiously around a fallen Suzuki motorcyle, while everyone ignores the cyclist's prone body nearby.
Also vying for best fake ad, Omnicom's BBDO de Chile won a Silver award for a print ad featuring Whiskas, made by real-life client Mars' Effem pet-food division. Two gleaming lids from Whiskas cans look eerily like cats' eyes.
Started with nuns 
Ask creatives how the scam-ad debate began, and many cite the tale of nuns giving an unforgettable product demonstration that swept the Cannes' Grand Prix in 1992. In the sweetly innocent spot, two nuns in a convent notice that their stone cherub's tiny penis has broken off. The reverend mother solemnly glues it back on -- upside down. Later, a younger and more worldly nun reattaches it correctly.

The commercial, supposedly for a Dutch brand of rubber cement called Talens, won for then-independent Casadevall Pedreno & SPR, a young and trendy Barcelona hot shop since bought by Publicis Groupe. Casadevall hastily assembled the whole agency in Cannes to celebrate with an all-night party. But the victory was not without controversy.
"There was a lot of discussion about whether it was real," recalls John Fawcett, a Cannes judge that year and now worldwide creative director at Cordiant Communications Group's Bates Worldwide, New York. "It seemed too pat, no one had heard of the brand, and the product didn't appear. There were two Spaniards on the jury. I was disappointed they didn't say anything."
Mr. Fawcett says that he wrote afterward to the jury president about jurors' misgivings at awarding the ultimate prize to an ad they feared was a scam. "He and the festival said they'd look into it," Mr. Fawcett says.
He didn't hear anything more. The agency was apparently able to prove the spot aired somewhere, but the product has never been heard of again. In festival lore, the Talens ad figures as a famous fake. "It's pretty much agreed it was a scam ad," he says.
Casadevall could not be reached for this article, but the agency has maintained over the years that the ad is legitimate.

Kibon ice cream said it never authorized this Young & Rubicam Brazil ad showing sperm-like spoons chasing an egg-like scoop of product.
Bogus ice cream ad
Some ads are easy to spot as fakes. For instance, it's a giveaway when the product is barely mentioned. Another clue is portraying the brand in a way that a client would be unlikely to approve. A Cannes jury a few years ago questioned a print ad by Young & Rubicam in Brazil for Unilever's Kibon ice cream in which lots of little spoons are in hot pursuit of a ball of ice cream. Legitimate enough -- except that the spoons look like sperm swimming to fertilize an ice cream ovule. To jury members, it just didn't look like food advertising, and it appears their instincts were right: Later, in the local trade press, the client denied approving the ad.

Marcello Serpa, the president of last year's Cannes jury and co-CEO, creative director at Omnicom's Almap/BBDO, Sao Paulo, says he was surprised when the disturbed festival chairman told him there was a problem with a print ad for Taronga Zoo, which had scored a Bronze Lion two days earlier. The ad, by Interpublic Group of Cos.' Lowe Lintas & Partners Worldwide, Sydney, looked genuine. But the Taronga Zoo raised an alarm, revealing the ad had been rejected because it portrayed animals in a manner contrary to the zoo's philosophy.
A pattern of fraud 
Lowe Lintas and Lionel Hunt, executive chairman of Lowe Lintas Oceania, the regional division to which Sydney reports, immediately started an investigation that uncovered a pattern of fraud and ended with the firing of the Australian creative director, Mark Shattner. The agency quickly returned a second Bronze Lion, for a TV spot for Artel Australia's plastic containers, and identified a scam poster at the New York Festivals. To be on the safe side, Mr. Hunt withdrew all the agency's entries in Australian ad shows.

Mr. Hunt said at the time that the ad that started it all "was clearly ineligible on all possible grounds. The Taronga Zoo was not a client of Lowe Lintas Sydney, the advertisement had never run, and obviously the Taronga Zoo had not given its permission for the entry." This year, Mr. Hunt personally scrutinized the agency's half-dozen Cannes entries. As further penance, his agency is doing an anti-scam ad campaign for the Australian Association of National Advertisers and the Advertising Federation of Australia.
Whistleblowers or accomplices? 
Although festivalgoers often say half-heartedly that award shows should do more to police the authenticity of awards, there seems to be little real pressure on them to do so. Some offenders are caught when advertisers speak up, but when it comes to scam ads, clients can be whistleblowers or accomplices.

For example, Grey Worldwide's Shanghai office was allowed to keep a Bronze Lion that came under investigation last year, for an Electrolux vacuum cleaner print ad. Cathy Chen, Electrolux's national marketing manager for Greater China, wrote to Romain Hatchuel and confirmed approving the ad. Except Ms. Chen's real ad agency isn't the Grey Global Group shop, but Publicis' Saatchi in Shanghai.
The unusual tale of a scam agency rather than a scam ad came about after Grey hired a Saatchi creative, Bok Chek Kiong. He arrived with an idea for an ad showing an empty turtle shell, implying the powerful vacuum sucked the turtle from the shell. Larry Ong, Grey Shanghai's creative director, admitted the ad only ran once, to qualify for the Cannes festival. But the client's approval of the ad, even though it was clearly created for jurors rather than consumers, along with the fact that it did run once, legitimized the entry.
"Scam ads cover a multitude of sins," says Bates' Mr. Fawcett. "There are very fine lines."
Gray areas 
And huge gray areas. One of the biggest issues is whether it's acceptable to create an ad and run it once, as cheaply as possible, to make it eligible for a festival.

"I believe that even if an ad legitimately runs on TV and therefore meets the strict criteria, if it is a washing machine ad running once on a children's channel at 4 a.m. with a 0.000001 rating, then clearly it's a scam," says Ian Thubron, CEO of M&C Saatchi, Hong Kong. "I believe it is up to juries or the awards committee to ascertain what is and what isn't legitimate and award accordingly."

'Tongue' is often cited as an example of a ghost ad.
Here's what went on behind the scenes with one Gold Lion winner: DM9 DDB, Sao Paulo, entered a print ad called "Tongue" in 1999 for Parmalat ketchup. The thick, red ketchup looks like a tongue protruding from a mouth as it oozes thickly from the lip of the bottle. After the ad won a Gold, rumors circulated that it hadn't really run anywhere. Although it's never been proved, two years later, "Tongue" is often cited as an example of a ghost ad.
After repeated calls by Advertising Age to the agency asking when and where the ad ran, a representative said the ad ran in June 1999 in an unnamed magazine published by a company called Sisal. The deadline for Cannes entries is two months earlier, in April, implying the ad only ran after it was awarded. And Sisal, a call to the company revealed, publishes car magazines, an improbable media choice for a ketchup ad.
Finger-pointing 
Which nationalities are most prone to try to scam festivals is a delicate issue, with much anonymous finger-pointing and indignant denials. "Asia is traditionally a habitual transgressor," says Mr. Fawcett. His agency, Bates, caused an uproar by refusing to participate in Singapore's Creative Circle Awards last fall in protest. Bates Asia President Jeffrey Yu, who also chairs Hong Kong's Association of Accredited Advertising Agents, accuses Singapore agencies of not weeding out scam ads. The agencies, in turn, complain that Mr. Yu is badgering them.

One local creative director justifies it this way: The Singapore ad industry is small, feels disadvantaged because of its size, and therefore is entitled to try to even the imbalance with scam ads.
Other countries are also singled out. "Brazilians are pretty bad," says another worldwide creative director. "Awards are so vastly more important for their new-business performance than anywhere else in the world. It's a country that treats advertising the way Americans treat Hollywood. Advertising people are celebrities. It encourages people to take risks."
Europeans are not immune, either. One former Cannes jury president cites -- somewhat jokes -- they are rarely caught because they almost never win anything.
The trick in the U.S., most agree, is to enter a "director's cut" rather than the final version of the commercial signed off by the client. "Production companies are more prone to do it [than agencies]," Mr. Fawcett says. "They'll enter a 60-second spot when only a 30 ran, or take out the demo shot the client wanted of pouring caramel over the peanuts."
"Nothing that hasn't run is legitimate," says Marcio Moreira, vice chairman and chief creative officer of Interpublic's McCann-Erickson WorldGroup. "But if something's very similar, how can you tell?"
Not unusual 
In some countries, it's not unusual or considered wrong to enter ads -- often with the client's permission -- that haven't run yet but might run later.

This year, for example, Interpublic's Lowe Loducca in Sao Paulo had already put the finishing touches on three print ads for Coca-Cola's Schweppes when Coke decided to tweak packaging and distribution, delaying the campaign until the second half of 2001. (Coke markets Schweppes outside the U.S.) Lowe Loducca went ahead and entered the ads, which the client had already approved, in several ad shows including the 2001 Cannes festival. In the ads, different body parts such as hands and arms each resemble a mouth, with the tagline "Your whole body asks for it."
It's also not unusual for festivals like Cannes to function almost as a test market, although that is outside the bounds of the official rules. "If the client is going to run it after the festival, the ad is extremely legitimate and not a ghost," claims Silvio Matos, president of Cordiant's Newcomm Bates, Sao Paulo, and one of the Brazilian judges at this year's festival. "To help make the decision, the client just wants the opinion of a group of professionals [on the jury] with high standards."
Especially in Latin America, entering work in a festival to convince a client it deserves to run is considered part of a laudable passion for good advertising. Eduardo Fernandez, president of Omnicom's DDB Latin America, describes a Volkswagen ad for the new Beetle done by DDB in his native Uruguay as a "semi-trucho." The client liked the "Born out of Love" spot, which showed two Volkswagens making love to create the car. But the spot was turned down for budget reasons. Mr. Fernandez says DDB's belief in the ad was so strong that the Montevideo-based agency paid to make the commercial and air it once.
The gamble paid off. When "Born out of Love" brought home Uruguay's first-ever Lion from Cannes in 1999, the marketer was so delighted that it reimbursed the production costs and paid to air the spot for two months.
Subtle differences 
"Between a trucho and a semi-trucho, there's a subtle difference" Mr. Fernandez explains. "It's fighting for an idea because you're convinced it's good. I think the trucho culture is disappearing, but it helped raise the level of advertising."

Still, he condemns outright fakes. "There are commercials for products that don't even exist," he adds. "Now that's a trucho."
But even after all the evasion and justification, it's not clear whether awards for scam ads pull in new business. "[Agencies] believe that clients will see their bulging mantelpieces and think they're brilliant and award them their business," says M&C Saatchi's Mr. Thubron. "Personally, I don't think clients choose agencies in this way. They are far more interested in what insightful creative thinking and work has achieved in terms of business success rather than creative awards, which are only internal industry recognition after all."
In some cases, ads that bend the rules do raise the creative profile of an agency. David Droga, an outgoing young Australian who is now Saatchi's creative director in London, made his name in Singapore, where he took the agency from obscurity to a top award-winner in two years.
Mr. Droga prefers to call them "initiative" ads, like the beautiful award-winning print work for the Royal Peacock bordello-turned-hotel. "We try to be more proactive," he said. "We'd go to the client first but we didn't do ads for free or scam ads for clients that don't exist."
Who should be responsible? 
One recurring question is whether the responsibility for preventing or detecting scam ads lies primarily with the awards shows, jurors, clients or agencies. "The festival always claims innocence," says McCann's Mr. Moreira. "But they could do more."

Not all jurors are keen on the task of monitoring their peers' honesty along with their creative talent. Cannes juror and Brazilian Mr. Matos doesn't relish the prospect.
"There are zillions of magazines throughout Brazil," he says. "And countless TV channels and cable and Internet. It's literally impossible to demand that everyone have seen everything that's run."
But there's clearly a fairness issue here. "You're actually stealing someone else's award in the category," says Donald Gunn, who runs the Gunn Report, an annual ranking of agencies, advertisers and production companies by creative awards won. "Someone else has worked hard to get the ad past the creative director and the client, only to be pipped at the post by someone who hasn't."
Many, including Mr. Gunn, believe scam ads will become less common and much less tolerated. "There's an encouraging shift in opinion that it's not fair," he says. "It used to be wink, wink, you're a clever chap. Now, it's you're a bit of a cheater, aren't you? You don't admire an agency for doing that.

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