Speed Dressing and Bronze Lyin'

There’s been a sort of a stink out there around Cannes, a big ad festival.

(This is a festival where all the big-agency executives go to party and whoop it up for a week or so celebrating big-budget advertising before coming back to lament about the state of the ad business today. But that’s another story.)

It seems that a Bronze Lion (no mean feat) was awarded for the JC Penney spot you see here. It’s a kind of funny spot, although I can’t for the life of me what the hell it has to do with JC Penney. The only thing is, JC Penney didn’t do it. Neither did Saatchi & Saatchi, their agency. Apparently it was created by a former Saatchi employee now at a joint called Epoch Films. I don’t know for sure if the damn thing even ran anywhere.

JC Penney and Saatchi & Saatchi both disavowed any involvement in the spot, and today I see in Ad Age that as a result of the brouhaha, Epoch requested that the entry be withdrawn, thus saving themselves and the festival the humiliation of having it taken from them. Good. As far as I’m concerned, Epoch ought to be banned from entering awards shows for a year or so. Not because the spot seems to promote teen sex, which is a stupid argument, but because the fact of the matter is, they cheated.

The sad thing is, in the overall, it was probably a good thing for Epoch. They will get business as a result.

Not that the spot didn’t deserve some recognition for creativity. Like I said, in its own non-related way, it’s funny. But because the proliferation of bogus ads like this ― created to win awards ― pisses me off.

Right about now there’s a debate in some parts of the advertising blogosphere about whether the spot is worthy or not. Many believe it is. “This is a lot better than the crap JC Penney usually does” is a typical ― and not inaccurate ― comment. And right about now, some readers of this blog are probably agreeing and think I’m an idiot.

But my view on advertising awards shows is that they are about advertising not art. And it goes beyond just thinking up something funny, shocking, cool, brilliant or innovative. It also means having have some relevance to the client and getting the client to go along with it.

Otherwise, as I said, it’s not advertising. It’s just art. Pure creativity. I believe strongly in both. But neither art nor meaningless creativity alone have any place in an advertising awards show. No matter how good it is. It should be about more than that.

Watch the spot. You’ll like it.