The sham(e) in scam ads

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: It was waiting to happen. The McCann Hanes ads have raised two issues. One of course is, how far can you take hateful stereotypes (anyone reminded of the recent Indian cricket trip to Oz?) And of course, it has finally brought to the forefront what has been often talked about and discussed topic in agency circles, well, to its culmination. The issue of scam ads, what they do for the industry and what is kosher, and what is umm jhatka, has been going on for over a decade, but this one is frankly the most reprehensible incident.

For the uninitiated, who are wondering what I am talking about, allow me to recap. Sometime in the last week of December, smaller newspapers and cheaper television channels are deluged with ads from mainstream and not so mainstream brands. These brands don’t advertise in these newspapers for the rest of the year. The best news? The clients that own these brands don’t pay a dime for these releases. The money for this is funded by the advertising agencies.

The Hanes ads were a typical example of this. In the case of Hanes, the client wasn’t even aware that the ad had been created and released by the ad agency. And its not the only client for whom had been created and released without the client’s knowledge.

A few aspects need to be examined in this race towards unbridled creativity.

Why do agencies create these ads that an average person, who watches five to six hours of television time, and reads four newspapers and perhaps half a dozen magazines, never gets to see?

Simple. It’s the race for getting the maximum awards in various ad club contests in India and abroad. Simply put, the client, on his daily interaction with his agency will debate and insist on introducing elements of information that might take away from the simplicity of communication or its idea.

At the same time the ad agency that performs well at award ceremony gets noticed and more clients call on them to handle their business. Not to speak of the more “awarded” creatives who get to climb the ladder to chief creative officer faster. Plus the pressure on the existing chief creative officer to hold on to his job longer.