How much do awards matter? A lot, it seems. Agencies are prepared to risk being called out for cheating to win one. Or perhaps the hope of winning one makes them careless about following the rules.
Cannes Network of the Year, Ogilvy & Mather, has returned two of its Cannes Lions of its own accord. Five Cannes Lions have been returned so far. Three networks have returned Cannes Lions awards this year.
BBDO Worldwide’s global creative chief officer, David Lubars, withdrew all of AlmapBBDO’s Bayer work, including one Bronze Lion in Outdoor, during the Festival, following criticism that one of the Bayer ads was sexist and questions about its eligibility. The withdrawal meant that BBDO also lost another Bronze Lion in Print & Publishing. Almap still won enough Lions to become Agency of the Year.
Grey for Good Singapore returned its Bronze Lion won in Promo & Activation for the I Sea app eventually. The app was created to use crowd-sourcing to scan waters for boats that may contain refugees. But various developers and technology bloggers questioned whether it would do what it said and Apple pulled the app from the iTunes store. Grey maintains its innocence.
Now Ogilvy & Mather, which was Network of the Year at Cannes for the 5th year in a row, has returned two Lions this week won by its Vietnam office. The campaign, Saving Africa’s Last Wild Rhinos, By Poisoning Them for NGO, Rhino Rescue Project, proposed to stop demand in Vietnam for rhino horns by injecting them with a substance that would be harmful to humans but not to the animals, and then publicising the danger to consumers.
It had won a Silver Lion in Direct and a Bronze in PR, but some elements of the campaign had not run although they were mentioned in the submission video.
Ogilvy Vietnam’s two Lions helped the network achieve a total of 120 prizes won by 31 offices around the world.
