The DDB / WWF 911 / Tsunami commercial kerfluffle recap post.

Update: The One Show has a new rule: will ban scam ad creators for five years.

Just to make sure everyone is up to date, here's a big linktastic post with all the fun stuff regarding the DM9DDB / DDB Brazil 911 tsunami WWF ad, and commercial. For those who missed it, here's the video ad.

 

 Best line of the week: It just shows how one horrible ad, these days, can do a tsunami's worth of damage. quipped Adweek's Barbara Lippert in "DDB Brazil's 9/11 Ad: A World of Trouble". the US wwf strongly condemned the ads - and said at first they had nothing to do with it but then had to change their statement - so now it's unclear if Brazil WWF lied to US WWF or if Brazil WWF were never contacted by US WWF in the first place.
Who knows.

By Monday I'm sure this will all be blamed on aliens. Dog and Pony Show has a suggestion on how to stop fake ads forever which is to ban ad agencies caught with a scam ad from entering any award for X amount of years.
Yeah, that'll happen. Should DDB still be ad agency of the year? Yes, since the WWF approved the ad. - I did other Bambuses regading this ad today here's the Bambuser page - this is outdated. DDB Brazil did make a commercial for WWF 911 / Tsunami - it was submitted to Cannes Lions 2009. The post we got sick of updating: DDB Brazil 911/Tsunami ad gets one hundred angry comments at Adfreak (updated, yet again) - honestly Adfreak's original posting here 911 was nothing according to the WWF now has over 180 angry comments and I can't even count the many red updates.

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oneforallsydney's picture

The worst part of this is not just the poor taste, the idea is a nothng idea anyway, I vote we shut Brazil out and the WWF forever, how can the WWF say they knew nothing about this, bollocks, of course they knew.

Dabitch's picture

This is getting very interesting... I mean on the one hand you have the US WWF saying nobody knew OMG would totally never-ever do that!" and then on the other you now have the Brazilian ad agency and WWF jointly apologizing for even thinking this idea up. So, if they indeed knew about it and approved it for a limited run it is not a scam ad and Brazil DDB should not be banned. If they didn't, ban away. But banning an agency for an approved ad, no matter how much people might dislike it in the country where it never intended to run, is tantamount to censorship.
Having it allowed to compete and lose (like it did in Cannes where it never made the shortlists) is the way it should have gone. We do have a lot of puns based on culture and language that never make it to the top of the awards pile anyway, so that's nothing new.

DDB and WWF Brazil need to get their stories straight on this ad, and future ads.