The many faces of irresponsibility.

So by now you must have heard about the infamous JC Penney ad called "speed dressing" and that some have dubbed as a cheer to teen sex, which I believe to be an overreaction. Nevertheless, I do agree that a company like JC Penney would never do it deliberately. It just doesn't fit the brand. That's the way things are in this business, it might be good for say, Harvey Nichols, maybe, I don't know. But not JC Penney.

Just to put you in context, just in case you are not familiarized with the ad it won a Silver Lion in Cannes. Then the client stated that it was an unapproved ad and even Saatchi NY (JC Penney's agency) said they had nothing to do with it, even when Saatchi employees, and even Gerry Graf are credited in the ad. Although the entrant company is not Saatchi, it's production company Epoch Films.

Here's the ad and below the credits as they appear in the Cannes Lions 2008 winners.



Type Of Entry: Product & Service
Category: Retail Stores
Title: SPEED DRESSING
Advertiser: JCPENNEY
Product/Service: JCPENNEY RETAIL STORES
Entrant Company, City: EPOCH FILMS, New York
Country: USA
Advertising Agency, City: SAATCHI & SAATCHI, New York
Country: USA
Executive Creative Director: Kerry Keenan
Copywriter: Craig Love
Art Director: Shayne Millington
Agency Producer: Zamile Vilakazi
Account Supervisor: Natasha Williamson
Production Company, City: EPOCH FILMS, New York
Country: USA
Director: Mike Long
D.O.P/Lighting Cameraman: Stephen Blackman
Editor: Joe Guest
Other Credits: Agency Executive Producer: Colin Pearsall / CCO: Gerry Graf

How stupid are we as an industry (and our industry is conformed not only by agencies, but it includes third parties such as, yes, production companies) that in the middle of a credibility crisis from both the public and our clients, we play around with brands just to get an award. Gawker.com makes no mistake when calling advertising an "award-obsessed" industry.

Now the problem is that we let other people play with our brands. Turns out the production company that did this ad has worked with Saatchi many times in the past, working on, yes, JC Penney ads. Probably at some point, either the director or somebody from the creative team had ideas for the brand that could look cool and not be presented to the client. That is, they're meant to be done for the following things: a) Use it in the directors reel/portfolio, b) Use it in the creatives portfolio, c) Use it in the production company's reel, and d) submit it to award shows. The latter carries a certain amount of risk due to client interference. Now there's two ways to deal with this.

1. Since most awards shows require "approval from the client" for every submitted piece, you can go to your client and say in a very political way, "look, we bust our asses here doing everything you ask us to do, and we have this ad that we took the liberty of shooting, it didn't cost you anything, in fact we split the costs with the production company because they really liked the idea, and we want to submit it to award shows".
That client may or may not sign the release, depending on his conscience levels. If the client is honest and smart he'll say "no, stick it up your ass, you're fired, you don't give a damn about the brand, you only care about award shows". Which by the way, is what most clients think about creatives. The other type of client would say "what the hell, I already have you do everything I want, go win your stupid awards, I don't give a damn about them, go kiss each others asses and when you come back I'll have you doing the same retarded stuff that I've always asked for".

2. You can skip the client part, talk to a buddy at the award show or create some fake release form and "ta-dah", you've got yourself a shortlist and most likely a winner, because If you're going through the trouble of creating a ghost ad with no client approval it better be as good as to win something. Then you can have the bad luck these guys had when a little thing called You Tube spread the ad online until it reached some guy in Texas who works for JC Penney and went, WTF?

There's a third way, which is never to do ghost ads. But that's stupid isn't it, how would we get those awards?

Now the speed dressing ad is ranked number one in Creativity's top 20, although they do mention that it's a controversial "supposedly fake" ad. Anyway, this is not the first time Creativity features ghost ads. Here's another example of an ad done by the same production company for the same brand and that never ran. I first saw this on Creativity's top 20 some months ago.



I'm not going to go into the moral issue of the ad, whether the kids are too young or not, or if it directly condones teen sex and if that is bad or not. That is another issue. The one I'm trying to touch here is the fact that the industry can be hugely irresponsible, we play around with brands like it has no consequences.
Whether we like it or not, when we are empowered with brands we are given a huge responsibility. And I'm not saying we should do what the client says. But we have to be honest about out job, which by the way, is not winning awards. I've said it before and I'll say it again, awards should merely be a consequence of great work. Work that's been approved and that's been out there to communicate with people.

Everybody has bad clients and everybody has to get through them, and a campaign that wins awards despite everything is a million times better than the one created as a ghost, no matter what the creative says. It is a very dangerous thing that with the industry being so unpopular there's people gambling with brands. These actions have consequences.

Here are some links to other articles on the matter.


Creativity Online article here.

Ad Age article here.

Gawker.com article