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Whoever came up with Prince Chedward is my hero.
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The internal hypocrisy of the fund manager is nothing to do with McCann. They simply took an art piece that signified American resilience and positivity during the crash of ‘87, and turned it into a symbol of sexism by placing a statue of a girl in front of it, to promote a fund by the type of business they implied the bull represented.
Why? It was a great idea, was a cultural sensation and I'm sure it def inspired a ton of people. Just because the client ended up being shitty doesn't mean you strip all the creative awards the agency won for creating a movement with their idea. Now if it was like Grey and their fake preventing refugees from drowning app, that's different
As a woman I also hated this campaign. More neoliberal bull. (See what I did there?)
What do you mean no-one is blaming the agency? Some of us are. They vilified the bull statue, a beloved one in NYC, which represents prosperity and resilience etc and made it evil, which is absolutely not what it's about and how the artist meant it (read about the bull statue background story) and the artist has protested with the city of new york about it too. They put her in front of it challenging the bull as if it ever represented bullying or oppressing women. She could have been beside him or whatever to represent she's just as strong as he is or something. I don't know but just not what it is now. I'm very liberal but this crap hurts women's causes, not advance them.
The awards shouldn’t be taken away, McCann or the creatives should hand them back in on their own. Yes it was a great idea, and maybe the creatives didn’t know about the hypocrisy then, but they do now. It’s like keeping a humanitarian award for work done on behalf of a dictator.
Also a woman. Also hated it.
Bernbach is a great name to be brought up here. He rebranded VW while all the while knowing why they had/still did have a problem. Now those ads are benchmarks for the industry. McCann did their job and fooled a lot of ppl. If that doesn’t sound like the epitome of advertising, I don’t know what does.
It was a good idea, unless they knew this was happening it’s not an issue. However I think most of us have been forced to work on a concept or execution with a client claim that we personally know isn’t true and have raised a concern that was shot down or ignored. Maybe we can use this as an example to push back?
A good ad will just make a bad product fail faster. Bernbach
Account Director 1 - did pharrel and robin thicke rip off marvin gaye? they recontextualized an existing piece of art. musician’s sample things all the time. is this not in reference to the fact that they were hypocrites?
also, we’re still all talking about it. i’m not sure what is unethical about putting a statue up. whether you like it or not, it gave a lot of people “a good feeling” at the time. a lot of efforts to advance a cause end up hurting it in some way (see john oliver’s entire show). is this not advertising? how much can we do other than trying to brighten somebody’s day? are we talking about the same thing? also, why did you start your comment by saying “No” as if what i wrote was anything other than an opinion. The creative team who came up with that idea was not in charge of payroll. every company does bad and good, you can only hope they net positive but even then, worry about your own work and life and family and stop trying to enact meaningless mob justice against a company that is gonna be just fine whether they get the awards or not.
Context: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/business/fearless-girl-settlement.html
Also, returning the awards won’t negate the cultural movement, it’ll likely strengthen it and show that the people/agency behind the idea actually does want to promote equal pay and not just piggy back on social issues to win awards.
But, it's not their fault the client is scum. I like the humanitarian-work-for-dictator analogy above.
can you still watch woody allen movies? cosby specials? old episodes of watch the skyrim?? weinstein productions? any tom cruise joint? listen to michael jackson? cheer for any nfl team? r kelly? etc?
should they give back their awards?
as vapid as awards are to begin with, giving back something that doesnt mean anything is an excercise in pointlessness.
No, Copywriter 2 - unethical answer of the brief is not an answer. Your analogy is a false equivalent. I can listen to R Kelly songs and he deserves his awards (arbitrary example, not a fan of his) because he really sings in them and it's his own art for which he's getting rewarded. If he got caught using fake vocals like Millie Vanilli, I'd have the awards stripped.
Like I said, agency used another artist's work in an unethical way
Maybe the bull started as a symbol of American resilience, but the statue is on wall st which is dominated by white males. Putting fearless girl there is supposed to represent the way people feel today. Not saying I’m swooning over the fearless girl piece, though I do think it was amazing work, rather that your argument is flawed.
For sure. No one is blaming the agency. It’s still an amazing idea. I think giving backs the awards would make it Fearless Girl even stronger.
@AD1: that’s a whole new argument. Thought we were focused on the awards aspect here.
Account Director 1 - hurts women causes? maybe so. but did it answer the brief? in a disruptive way? you betcha.
Yes, CW1, they should return those themselves. It would even be better PR for them as we all know they got them and those who didn't, will.
It's like when Don wrote the letter against smoking when lucky strike fired the agency. Returning them will just be an ad for McCann