Indian industry reeling from plagiarism claims that has already seen six awards from GoaFest’s Creative Abbys withdrawn from two agencies: Further ads under fire including Print Grand Prix
The Indian ad industry is facing a further crisis with the credibility of its largest awards show the GoaFest Creative Abby’s taking further dents. GoaFest this year was held in the shadow of one of the industry’s biggest scandals where worldwide attention was brought to India over the JWT/Ford Figo fiasco. With the dust just starting to settle following the sacking of JWT scapegoats – including JWT India’s chief creative officer, Bobby Pawar – the fall out from GoaFest is taking on similar proportions.
In the week following GoaFest, accusations of creative plagiarism and scams has dogged the festival’s Awards Governing Council. So far an agency has withdrawn an award-winning campaign and six awards have been taken away from two agencies.
First sign of trouble for the Awards Governing Council was Leo Burnett India’s withdrawal of it’s Tata Salt Lite radio campaign after its client came out and suggested that the work “did not meet the guidelines” for entry at GoaFest. The campaign had won two Gold and two Silver Abbys.
The second controversy was the accusation of plagiarism towards BBDO India and the subsequent decision to strip the agency of three awards. On Thursday last week the Awards Governing Council withdrew the two gold and one silver Abbys awarded to BBDO India’s DHL print campaign.
The DHL campaign “If you make it, we can ship it” (above left) is similar to a 2011 campaign from O&M Hong Kong for Allied Pickfords (above right).
The same day DDB Mudra were the centre of a third controversy, also for plagiarism, when an official complaint was was received against their print ad for Electrolux, which had won two silver Abbys at the Festival. The Electrolux “Versace” ad (left) is similar to a campaign for LG washing machines created by Y&R Brazil in 2012 (see right).
Uniquely, when complaints are received by the Creative Abbys Award Governing Council the relevant juries are asked to vote on the course of action. In both cases they decided to withdraw the awards.
This has opened a can of worms in the Indian industry with around 10 further complaints laid against other winning campaigns.
With the precedence set, the Award Governing Council could have to take the embarrassing action of taking back McCann Erickson India’s Print Grand Prix.
The agency’s Active Total Security Systems campaign had been awarded the Grand Prix, but official complaints point out it is similar to a Moi GPS magazine ad created by Bates Asia Shanghai in 2008 (see images at the top of this story).
Leo Burnett also face similar accusations over a Tide Detergent campaign that garnered four silvers and a bronze and a Coke Studio concept that picked up gold, four silvers and a bronze. Similarly, two JWT campaigns are also being investigated. McCann are also facing further inquiry over a Big Babol award winner to determine if it fell in to the qualifying period.
In an email to Campaign Brief Asia Josy Paul (left), chairman and chief creative officer at BBDO India defended his DHL campaign and admitted he was bemused at the decision to take away his agency’s awards, and he makes a good point.
“The campaign was judged by two sets of jury at Goafest with 12 members each (one led by Agnello Dias of Taproot and the other led by Sonal Dabral of DDB Mudra),” said Paul.
“All 24 jury members did not mention the ‘Hong Kong’ ad. Our campaign was shortlisted at Cannes and Spikes. Another 30 international jury members have seen our work and nominated it. I have got news that our campaign has just been shortlisted at the One Show 2013 awards. Which means at least 20 other international jury members have seen it. Still no issues. We’ve been told that the ‘Hong Kong’ ad was done in the second half of 2011. So it could only be entered for Cannes in 2012. How come it didn’t get nominated? And our campaign got nominated at Cannes 2012?”
“Art directors, architects and artists have been known to use, and be inspired by Escher’s drawings for decades now. It’s nobody’s property. The execution, the line, the finish of our campaign makes all the difference. Which is why the best juries in the world are giving it top marks. Most importantly…why would we copy someone else’s ad? It’s just not us,” said Paul.
In the Indian trade press Sonal Dabral (left), chairman & CCO at DDB Mudra, also defended his Electrolux ad: “Creatives working across the globe on similar categories can and do come up with similar ideas. This is one such case and nothing but a huge coincidence.”
It’s difficult to see these controversies ending happily for an industry already under the spotlight.
It’s obvious however, the Indian Creative Abbys needs a complete overhaul. Over recent years they have been dogged by controversy, in-fighting and petty point-scoring. Prominent agencies seemingly take it in turns to boycott the awards and the industry continually resists all rational thinking that maybe the time has come for international judges to sit on the judging panels for both the health, independence and credibility of the awards.
If a Dan Wieden, Jeff Goodby, Sir John Hegarty or a David Droga was chairing these panels these issues would all disappear very quickly.
14 Comments
Sonal – that’s a weak position, to say that:
“Creatives working across the globe on similar categories can and do come up with similar ideas. This is one such case and nothing but a huge coincidence.”
is ignoring what we know about the mind. Best shown here by Derren Brown in an experiment on 2 creatives who thought they had an original idea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjueOXCy3OM
Chances are they have seen the other work and been inspired by it – subconsciously. Whatever happened to the pile of work that ends up on the floor when the CD says “it’s been done before”.
How long must this industry keep subscribing to the farce that awards are? And I’m not only talking about this particular show. I’ve seen various scam pick up at several different shows.
Awards may have once rewarded good work or served to showcase the industry’s best. These days, award shows have become a tool to try and swindle a pay-rise or a job offer. As an industry, we need to be discussing why this is the case. Or we have to ask ourselves what our ‘business’ really is.
Unfortunately, awards shows are not just a tool to try and swindle a pay-rise or job offer. They are a tool to boost multi-nats share price, profile and prestige. Hence the pressure from above to scam.
WPP are a major player in this BS, but they act shocked when some underling is caught responding to their demands to win awards or else.
Scams are in the award shows’ interests (fees), the employees’s interests (career), and the networks’ interests (share price). Nobody wants to clean out this stable.
I doubt anyone intentionally committed plagiarism here. Having said that, they’re almost certainly ALL scam, or at least ‘agency-initiated.’
How did these unprincipled people get so high in the agency food chain?
it’s all a game.
With nothing to do with the real work clients pay us to do.
Some play it better than the rest.
For them, the rewards are theirs to enjoy.
So don’t hate the players who play it better than you.
Up your game.
Or get out of the stadium.
And if you get caught out.
Don’t bother making excuses or explanations.
Nobody listens or cares.
Well done Goafest juries.
The last line of this article is one of the most patronising “White Man’s Burden” lines I have ever read. Sure, the system needs fixing, but getting a bunch of global creative leaders who will need tons of explanation and context to judge the bulk of work that’s sent to a purely local award show is a ridiculous idea.
All this can only stop when clients put their foot down. They need to say ‘we don’t give a damn about how many awards you win cos they are all fake anyway. Show us your real portfolio and tell us what you can do for us and for how much. That’s how we evaluate you.’
Until then the industry will be filed with inappropriate people like 11am above.
“getting a bunch of global creative leaders who will need tons of explanation and context to judge the bulk of work that’s sent to a purely local award show is a ridiculous idea”
Who are you trying to kid? I think Wieden, Droga, Goodby and Hegarty can handle the 90% of entries that are aimed at Cannes judges!
And with their great knowledge and talents I’m sure they can work out the other 10% or defer to the Indian CDs on the jury for guidance.
That’s what happens at the HK4As.
This award show deserves some props judging by the way they are acting to set things right. I am sure this move is instigated by a growing number of clients as they are now realising they could too be fired for abetting scam. This is not just a ‘game’ any longer.
While I admit the ads above a VERY similar to each other, seemingly a little too close to be a coincidence, an award system where one agency can tear down another agencies work by finding a similar ad sounds like a disaster.
I mean where would it end?
You can see even from the attempts on this blog to dredge up past work that strikes a similarity to work posted, that it’s pretty easy to find if you look hard enough. (After all we’ve had 50 years of ads to choose from.) It’s pretty difficult to draw a line when you get into the grey areas.
And sometimes two teams on different sides of the planet DO come up with the same stuff at the same time (which, in an award show, usually affects both parties badly anyway).
Having said all that, this Indian show looks like a crock.
Its funny how self righteous the indians get when someone suggests that they have an international representative on the judging. They think their work has some mystical cultural references that only they get. Just take a look at the ads above. They employ the same thinking and styling as western ads.
To NO (posted on April 17, 2013 1:32 PM)…why don’t you check out ALL those award winning ads from India of the past years. Those are mostly (if not all) in English! You’re obviously not ‘familiar’ with the award entry tricks.