The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity announced its final winners Saturday night at the Palais des Festivals, but one stands out in particular.
The Agency of the Year honor, tallied from all the awarded and shortlisted work earned by a single agency, went to AlmapBBDO -- an interesting development given that earlier in the week the shop was involved in a sexist scam ad controversy and had to return a Bronze Lion for a Bayer campaign the client did not pay to run.
The agency paid for the media run on its own so that the campaign could be entered into the festival. It featured suggestive lines implying invasion of privacy and sexual violence toward women and came to the fore when observers, including former BBH U.S. chair and IfWeRantheWorld/ MakeLoveNotPorn founder Cindy Gallop, took to social media to call out the jury for awarding it a Lion.
Ad Age reached out to, but has yet to hear back from, the festival organizers for comment on whether the latest scam controversy, with an Agency of Year winner, will lead to a rethink of its scam policy.
In its official statement on scam work, the festival notes: "If we deem it is required, we will ban the individuals involved from entering our awards for a specific period of time which will be decided at that time." But it does not have any language regarding punishment for the companies involved in submitting the scam ads.
Ms. Gallop sees the win, in light of everything else, as an opportunity for the agency. "AlmapBBDO is an agency that does outstanding work, led until recently by an outstanding creative leader I was fortunate enough to judge the Glass Lions with at Cannes last year -- Marcello Serpa," she told Ad Age in an email.
"That's why I was so disappointed, first to see the Bayer ad, and then to find out it was a scam. I congratulate AlmapBBDO on winning Agency of the Year, and hope this week's events at Cannes will drive some serious self-examination within the agency on how their focus needs to move from winning awards at any cost to welcoming in female creativity, empathy and ethics."