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 UPDATE: Lynx officially strips FP7 Doha of awards: full story here.
Samsung has issued a joint statement with Dubai Lynx, denouncing the Fortune Promoseven Doha work that ran in a Lebanese newspaper last week (causing considerable controversy) and disowning the work entirely.
“[T]he company did not commission, develop or approve the publishing of the religiously insensitive advertisements. This advertising campaign was produced and submitted by marketing agency, FP7 Doha, without the knowledge or consent of Samsung Electronics,” read the statement.
Sunny Hwang , president of Samsung Electronics Levant, said in the release: “At no time was Samsung Electronics aware of these advertisements and the company has not approved or commissioned FP7 to create any advertising campaigns. Samsung has the utmost respect for all cultures and religions and would never produce or approve the use of such culturally insensitive advertisements.”
Hwang added: “We will endeavour to ensure that the necessary action will be taken in this matter. We are disappointed with FP7’s reckless behaviour that has jeopardised the integrity of Samsung and of the Lebanese community.”
From its side, FP7 Doha has also issued an official statement in the Lebanese press, accepting responsibility for the ads, and apologising to the Lebanese people for any hurt the ads may have caused. Strangely, the FP7 statement also shakes its metaphorical fist at the parties that attacked the ads, saying they “took advantage” of the situation.
We would have thought steering completely clear and just leaving the issue would be the way to go, but, no, it seems.
This does once and for all settle the notion that these ads were in any way approved or signed off, though. It seems a very safe bet that the awards for this work will now be pulled.
In the Samsung statement, Phillip Thomas, CEO of Cannes Lions, the owner of Dubai Lynx, said: “We accept all entries to the Dubai Lynx Awards in good faith and trust the agencies competing to be honest and accurate with their submissions and details of client sign off. It appears in this case that FP7 Doha has knowingly tried to mislead ourselves and our jury regarding work they claimed to have created on behalf of Samsung Electronics, which in reality the client had never seen or approved.
“We have openly stated that any submissions to the awards found to be in breach of our entry criteria will be withdrawn and that will be the case here. We will be vigilant in checking all winning entries meet the criteria in all ways, and if they are found wanting then we will act,” he added.
That seems about as clear as it’s possible to be.
However, what is not clear is how things got to this point in the first place. Having to take such drastic action, and deal with extremely nasty PR firefights, so soon after the event, suggests there has been a systemic failure within FP7, Dubai Lynx, and the interactions between the two organisations.
As we try to dissect the aftermath of this situation we’ll be trying to put questions about this to both Lynx and Promoseven.
FP7 now faces seeing one of its agencies stripped of a huge swath of awards, and, potentially, its agency of the year status – and, much more seriously, quite possibly a lawsuit from Samsung, looking for redress for the brand damage and loss of business FP7 (inadvertently) caused.
Lynx is fighting to maintain its credibility and to do so is faced with unpalatable but inevitable action against its biggest winner, while swathes of other agencies’ winning work is now also being publicly questioned and examined.
For everyone’s sakes, let’s hope they sort it out to mutual satisfaction. The region needs a strong, independent creative competition, and Lynx with its Cannes Lions pedigree has been well-placed to provide it, and up until now has done so.
But the region definitely does not need this kind of mess.
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