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Havas chief David Jones says companies must work harder to prove that brands are socially responsible following the downturn

David Jones, the global chief executive of Havas Wordwide, has warned that advertisers who market their brands as socially responsible should fear “inherently negative” social media such as Twitter and Facebook more than getting ad campaigns banned by regulators.

Jones, who raised the issue in a discussion on consumer demand for social responsibility from brands at the Isba annual conference yesterday, said that following the downturn companies would have to work significantly harder to prove the authenticity of their brands.

“Social responsibility was one of the biggest trends before the financial and economic meltdown and it will be coming out of it,” he said, speaking to MediaGuardian.co.uk after the session. “Many companies got burnt by consumers [before the downturn] because they did it tactically, greenwashing, and not as a strategic move.”

Earlier this week the Advertising Standards Authority unveiled a new advertising code that included a social responsibility clause that aims to crack down on advertisers who look to “break the spirit if not the actual letter” of the rules.

Jones said that with the rise of social media, with which many companies are still grappling, brands should be more worried about consumers than trying to outmanouevre the regulator.

“Social media is inherently a more negative than a positive medium on many levels,” he added. “Lots of stuff that is passed around is negative. If you are a brand or a company today you should be far less worried about broadcast regulations than digitally empowered consumers. What is an ASA sanction versus a [negative] sanction from a couple of million people if you are not authentic?”

Jones, alongside Euro RSCG chairman Kate Robertson, is about to kick off the second year of global initiative One Young World. The first, which was held in London, saw 1,000 delegates aged under 26 discuss global problems such as climate change and how the next generation will tackle them.

The initiative, dubbed a “Youth Davos” and supported by Bob Geldof and Kofi Annan, has already shown that it is a given that companies will have to be “conscious corporations” that “do good rather than just look good”.

“Young digitally empowered consumers will punish those that don’t [be socially responsible] and reward those that do,” Jones said. “Social media has given people real power to act. Old leaders don’t understand the impact of social media. It is a medium the young people of the world control.”

The location of the next summit, which will be held next year, is currently the focus of a bid process between cities in the US, France, India, South Africa and Malaysia.

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Maybe this is, like, email marketing 101 (and if so, please leave a comment), but the introductory series of four emails American Airlines sends to its new frequent flier members struck me as unusual. Wonder what it does to open rates.

P.S. It wasn’t technically spam —  I consciously subscribed for AA’s mailings — but these guys are very prolific writers.

People have become so used to seeing children live on the streets that they don’t even notice them anymore. Ogilvy & Mather Mumbai needed to create a stir, to remind them of the glaring difference between their own children and these less fortunate ones. Most often these kids have only newspapers to sleep on, a symbol of how impoverished they truly are. We decided to package newspapers as bedsheets and place them along with branded sheets, to bring home the glaring difference between the two.

Advertising Agency: Ogilvy & Mather, Mumbai, India
National Creative Director: Abhijit Avasthi, Rajiv Rao
Executive Creative Director: Sumanto Chattopadhyay
Art Director: Harshik Suraiya, Mayur Varma
Copywriter: Roma D’Cruz

Advertising Agency: Publicis, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Art Director: Bart Oostindie
Copywriter: Jochem Visjager
Photographer: Simon Warmer

Leading Agencies, Publishers and Networks Converge to Discuss Operational and Sales Implications of Latest Advertising Tools NEW YORK, NY (MARCH 12, 2010) — Seeking to lend order and clarity to an increasingly important yet confusing component of the interactive advertising ecosystem, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) today convened the interactive industry’s first interdisciplinary forum on ad verification companies and technologies. “Ad Verification Day: An Introduction and Discussion of Methodologies” is being held in New York City, with an invited roster of interactive industry executives representing marketers, agencies, publishers, ad networks, and technology companies. Companies claiming the ability to verify online ad buys have arisen during the past several years in response to advertiser and agency concerns that ads are running within content environments that have not been expressly included in a media buy or could harm an advertiser’s brand equity. By verifying delivery of ad campaigns, advertisers and media buyers hope to identify and eliminate budget waste from their online campaigns and safeguard the reputation of their brands. The IAB, which represents the interests of the sellers of interactive advertising industry, has been a driving force in creating transparency in and removing friction from all stages of the interactive advertising buying process. Ad verification tools, when employed with sound methodologies, hold promise as a new resource for further improving confidence in the process of buying interactive advertising. But members of the association have grown uneasy about the proliferation of ad verification companies with differing, unaudited technologies, and the cost that ad verification is adding to the implementation and reconciliation of advertising transactions. “We need to make sure that the work of ad verification companies is about brand protection and not confused with currency,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO, IAB. “These companies are not audited against any industry guidelines for counting impressions. It is our hope that the IAB, working together with organizations like the Media Rating Council, will be able to create a process and a set of open standards for this new type of tool, with the twin goals of creating a brand-friendly environment for marketers while not adding complexity cost to the ad buying process. Ad Verification Day is our first step in understanding the needs of the market.” “Ad verification processes should complement existing work agencies and publishers have undertaken to make the interactive advertising supply chain more efficient and effective,” said Dan Murphy, Senior Vice President Interactive Research & Ad Traffic for Univision Interactive Media, and co-chair of the IAB’s Ad Operations Council. “In an attempt to drive integrity into the digital ecosystem, the very real side effect of many current ad verification companies is friction in the form of inaccurate reporting. This is the antithesis of what publishers and agencies sought years ago in creating the joint 4A’s/IAB Reinvention Taskforce,” Murphy added. The Reinvention Task Force is an ongoing and successful effort by the IAB and the American Association of Advertising Agencies to agree on workflow standards and processes, contractual relationships between agencies and publishers, and other friction-generating areas of the digital ecosystem. “We are excited by the opportunity to learn about ad verification services and how these services function,” said George Ivie CEO and Executive Director of the Media Rating Council. “The value and trust these services bring is certainly enhanced by communication efforts such as today’s IAB event, and beyond today, value and trust may be enhanced by efforts to seek methodological guidelines and transparency among the verification services; the MRC encourages these steps forward and supports assurances that advertising appears in contextual environments expected by marketers.” “Today’s summit gives ad verification companies a platform to explain how they use technology to validate impression delivery and provide a forum for publishers and ad networks to discuss the ongoing demand of accountability and transparency,” said David J. Moore, Chairman and Founder, 24/7 Real Media, and Chairman of the Board of the IAB. “Marketplace trust among all stakeholders in our industry is key to growing the digital share of advertising and ad verification is one of many tools that may help us provide that assurance to marketers.” About the IAB: The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 460 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net . IAB Media Contact: Marla Aaron Director, Marketing Communications 212.380.4714 marla@iab.net

“In the sea, there’s no such thing as a little bit of rubbish.”

Advertising Agency: Young & Rubicam, Paris, France
Creative Director: Les 6
Art Director: Sébastien Guinet
Ass Art Director: Julien Hérisson
Copywriter: Josselin Pacreau
Photographer: Ben Stockley
Retoucher: Asile
Art buyer: Sylvie Réveillard
Model Maker: Jean Benne
Published: March 2010

Regulator says ad featuring women apparently having orgasms unlikely to cause offence, despite being aired before 11pm

A TV commercial for a Durex “pleasure gel” featuring women apparently having orgasms has escaped a ban from the advertising watchdog, despite being aired by Channel 4 before 11pm.

The ad, for Durex’s Play O gel, featured head shots of a number of women singing along to an opera aria while apparently experiencing sexual pleasure. The ad was cleared by Clearcast, the body responsible for clearing TV ads at script stage, to be run after 11pm.

However, Channel 4 aired the ad twice after 10pm, during Gordon Ramsay’s The F Word and a Derren Brown show, in a “measured decision” to schedule the commercial earlier than recommended by Clearcast.

The broadcaster said viewers would not be offended as The F Word, for example, is of an adult nature and contains strong language and sexual innuendo.

In its ruling clearing the commercial, the Advertising Standards Authority said it was not overly graphic and did not contain explicit material.

The ASA added that the shows Channel 4 aired the ads around were unlikely to have many young children watching.

“Although the ad was broadcast by Channel 4 earlier than Clearcast’s scheduling advice, in consideration of the child audience index figures for the ad breaks and surrounding programmes, we considered that it had been scheduled appropriately and was unlikely to cause offence to viewers,” the regulator concluded.

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