Over on his blog, James Fallows has been providing good perspective about the Olympics in China, and in particular some of the communications challenges, both communications in the country and the impact the communications flow from the rest of the world in and China out is having. It's super interesting. Blogs and online communications qre playing a big part in the communications flow both ways, with some unpredictable results.
Today in the Journal, a look at some advertising controversy. In this case, a global ad agency (TBWA) was doing ads for Adidas while also doing some pro bono work for Amnesty International. To say the two campaigns were in conflict is a bit of an understatement, and is now causing a high degree of pain for management. But some perspective:
As the ad industry has consolidated, global agency networks increasingly take on work for competing accounts. In Europe, WPP Group PLC's Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide agency works on antismoking campaigns for the Cancer Research UK charity and does marketing for British American Tobacco PLC, one of the world's largest cigarette companies. It also creates ads for energy giant BP PLC and environmental group WWF, which wants to cut oil use.
"It is an unavoidable consequence of being a global network with lots and lots of clients," said an Ogilvy spokesman, Kevin Whitlock. "These kind of tensions happen in any large company."
That tension is real, but the real story is this: we are now living in a world where people living in China are participating in the conversation in a much more direct way than ever before. As the article notes:
Word of the human-rights campaign is now spreading through China, and TBWA and Amnesty International are disavowing the ads.
The stir comes at a delicate time for TBWA, which could face a backlash in China and was already competing for renewed business from Visa Inc., a major sponsor of the Games. It also makes TBWA the latest international marketer to run afoul of China's complex political and social landscape.
Chinese bloggers, spurred by a report in state-run media of the Amnesty campaign last week, are now calling for a boycott of all TBWA ads, among other measures.
What certainly appears to be happening is that the state-run media is a bit unprepared for the way the Chinese blogosphere is picking up and amplifying its stories. I would bet that the last thing the official communications folks want is a ton of focus on an ad campaign, but that's what they now have. This intersection between the mainstream media and the blogs in the US was really the reason I started this blog. :) Both the bloggers and the Chinese media are going to be seeking balance for the next several years.
Oh, and to top it all off (and to showcase the hypocrisy of the agency awards process) -- Amnesty spiked the campaign because it wasn't on message, but allowed the agency to run it once so it could be submitted for awards, one of which it won. My prediction is this is going to end up being the most expensive award TBWA ever submitted.