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Full disclosure: my best time careerwise, and best work was at Publicis, so I have a strange loyalty to the company still.
I saw a lot of people mocking this decision as it was announced, but I think it was smart of Publicis to do this, right now. Like you said, they got a tonne of press for it, but also as more clients and accounting agencies make their pilgrimage to Cannes to watch actresses talk about advertising (wtf?) on yet another celebrity panel, Cannes is making itself a circus show instead of a creativity festival. We have podcasts where non ad-people chat about ads (two are people who work in advertising), and we have actresses on a panel discussing how they'd advertise their show. When huge celebrity names like Yoko Ono arrived at Cannes it was interesting because her entire career is one of a creative, but now that celebrities Kim Kardashian are the draw I am less interested in the awards show overall. Yes, she's marketed, but she came to talk about the game she had other people make, that robs little kids of their spending money.
Even plastic man and WPP CEO says that Cannes is too costly now, and he's absolutley right. Adweek spinned it as "not the right way," but the fact is Publicis move is a classic one. All up and coming record-breaking award winning small agencies have done it some point (Kesselskramer comes to mind). They'll sit out the awards, because awards are expensive to enter and becoming way more arbitrary in who wins these days, and they're inventing new categories each year so you have to enter as many as possible to have a shot. In Cannes if your countrymen are on the Jury, you'll win. If they are not, your entire country misses out that year, feeding the non-winning circle. Sweden is on a winning streak these past years, because of Swedish jurors.
Walking away from all that, announcing it during Cannes, and Arthur Sadoun having a twitter Q&A about is freaking genius.
I may still be under the influence of the Publicis kool-aid, but I agree with this move. Only a huge network like Publicis can make Cannes and other bloated awards shows stop and check themselves for a minute. Awards may be how creatives move from one level to another, but our job was never one of getting oddly shaped metal chunks. Our job is to sell the clients product. As long as Publicis has internal checks on who is making work that works, and promotes those who do, it's a great money-saving move.
Clients love Cannes today, too much. Convince them, when they're done spending their money at Cannes, to spend money on great creative now.
From Campaign
Ofcom has banned a television ad for Irn-Bru that portrays a male-to-female transsexual, saying that it reinforces negative stereotypes.
Ofcom reported that 17 viewers, some of whom were transsexuals, had complained about the commercial, which was produced by the Leith Agency. The advertisement is set in the 1950s and shows a mother playing the piano with her children. The mother ends her song with the lines "... even though I used to be a man".
Explaining why the ad had been cleared for transmission, the BACC said that it did not believe the joke was at the expense of transsexuals, but rather a joke about attitudes and how they have changed over time.
However, Ofcom has ruled that the ad must not be shown in its current form because of the final scene, which showed the woman whistling cheerfully and shaving her face.
In its ruling, Ofcom said: "We felt that the end scene with the woman shaving could be seen as directly mocking transsexual women and was capable of causing offence by strongly reinforcing negative stereotypes."
The shaving is mimicking the Esquire cover where Marilyn Monroe does that. Sheesh.
I still haven't tasted that crap. In the 90s they sold it with rooftop BBQ's and awkward z-laden pickup attempts and later as plan Z.
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