Last week came a shocking piece of news ? JWT India?s national creative director and managing partner Bobby Pawar and Vijay SimhaVellanki, creative director at Blue Hive, a WPP unit which manages the Ford business, had been asked to resign and take moral responsibility for the three ?scandalous? Ford Figo ads which had raised a storm globally. It was the international press and social media which had first raised the flag about the ads created by JWT India. The agency had uploaded them on the adsoftheworld website and also entered them in the Creative Abby competition at Goafest 2013.
While the industry debated the issue and its fallout, some industry stalwarts have raised the question: Are agencies getting a bit too zealous about placating clients? Prathap Suthan, managing partner, Bang in the Middle, said, ?I personally think that Bobby?s and Vijay?s exits are an overzealous sacrifice. Made to please the client. Made to douse the firestorm.?
There have been some extremely controversial campaigns across the world. Benetton’s Unhate campaign, Diesel’s Be Stupid campaign, to name just two. Debates ensued, some called it tasteless, some called for a ban, but ultimately creativity triumphed. Both the campaigns were feted at the Cannes Lions. In 2009, when Volkswagen entered India, it released its Beattle- Curves Are Back campaign. The creative team behind that campaign, incidentally, was led by Pawar, then chief creative officer of DDB Mudra. Indeed, these ads have generated a lot of heat, sometimes justified and sometimes not, but this was the first time top executives had to take the rap.
In the wake of the controversy, JWT issued a statement which said: ?After a thorough internal review, we have taken appropriate disciplinary action with those involved, which included the exit of employees at JWT. These were necessary steps owing to the direct accountability of the concerned individuals as we work to ensure that both the right oversight and processes are strictly enforced so that this never happens again.?
Pawar, on his part, says he had a good run at the agency and is proud of the work he has done. He says: “Being the leader, I have taken the moral responsibility. I leave it to my agency to decide whether it was an extreme step or not.?
Suthan asks if accountability is the issue here, then what about the person who signed the entries and the cheques that went to Goafest? Why is only the agency’s creative heads being pulled up? ?Didn?t the client sign the entry forms? Isn?t the marketing head at Ford equally responsible?? he asks.
The larger issue here is about what it portends for the employees of JWT, and the entire creative fraternity as a whole, Suthan says. ?This isn?t the first time or the last time that errant creative behaviour has happened. Crazier things will happen,? he said. Will the guillotine be the only solution, he asks.
Meanwhile, many in the industry are hoping that something good will come out of this fiasco. Shashi Sinha, president of The Advertising Club which organises Goafest along with Advertising Agencies Association of India, without wanting to get into the debate on the merit or demerit of the ad content, said, ?I will say that I hope something good comes out of this and both advertisers and agencies don’t indulge in such scam ads.?
