Well well well and splosh. Since I got that totally wrong, and the folly will be preserved elsewhere on the intertubes, here's a lesson to rubes that rush in where angels fear to tread.
For the latest state of play on this image, go to Advertising Age, for the story 9/11 Ad for WWF Causes Tusanami of a Crisis for DDB Brasil.
It includes a link to Keith Olbermann naming DDB Brasil as winner in his worst persons in the world segment. Anything Keith says is good enough for me.
Since the intertubes is full to overflowing with error, I've deleted the erroneous post from this site. No need to keep perpetuating a myth. For anyone offended or mislead, apologies. Clearly the WWF Brasil and DDB Brasil are dummies.
UPDATE: Well perhaps I mis-spoke yet again, and too soon. Here's the latest on the ever unfolding scam ad situation via Mumbrella (here).
There's also more on the debacle here at Ad Age, and this amusing AdRANTs, under the happy header An Hour Went By -- Must Be WWF DDB 9/11 Ad Update Time.
Not to mention the WWF apology here.
Bottom line is that the WWF Brasil and DDB Brasil remain dummies, but the One Show advertising competition is also a bunch of dills, by now yammering on about fake ads:
The One Club defines “fake ads” as: ads created for nonexistent clients or made and run without a client’s approval, or ads created expressly for award shows that are run once to meet the requirements of a tear sheet.
And the advertising industry's inability to regulate itself when it comes to chasing awards and glory has also copped the spot light.
It seems DDB has antipodean form in this regard - having played full page print advertisements in The Manly Daily on July 14th 2007, with the companies featured - Cycling Australia and Wrigley - saying that they didn't commission or pay for them (DDB Booked Ads to enter Awards).
I think I'll stop with this from Ad Age, under the header Bad for DDB, Bad For Ad Shows, Just Plain Bad:
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Insensitive and simply awful creative. Lust for awards at the expense of a client. Ignorance on the part of executives about what's going on at -- and coming out of -- their own agency. Truly awful crisis management at both the local and global level.
This parade of horribles, many of which represent the worst of the agency business, marched last week on DDB's much-celebrated Brazilian agency, spiraling the creative powerhouse into a days-long crisis that could have been averted with even halfway-decent PR. The scandal began when a little-seen print ad that exploited the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks made on behalf of the World Wildlife Fund was outed and condemned widely on the internet. It widened when the agency denied it had anything to do with a video version that was entered in Cannes -- a claim that turned out to be a lie.
Complicit in the crisis was awards-show culture that doesn't do nearly enough to weed out scam ads, those edgy creative concoctions that get only enough media weight to qualify for the awards circuit. As tasteless and ineffective as it might have been, "Tsunami," the DDB ad in question, actually netted a so-called "merit award" in the prestigious One Show this year. That award was withdrawn during last week's outcry, which sparked the One Show board to create new rules to regulate scam ads ...
"This ad also shows us there is no such thing as local," he continued. "Digital distribution has made it so that everything is global. You need to be sensitive to a wider audience. But that's not the case here because they entered it into international awards shows. That's half the problem."
Between a muddle and downright stupidity and a conspiracy, always go with the muddle and the stupidity. Offensive stupidity.
I think I'll stop now, it's just a relief to know that I'm not the only loon in the world ...
Here's your evidence. Let me know when you've got that apology posted ...
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