Let’s talk about scam

Campaign is running an analysis I have written of scam advertising here. It follows this year’s Cannes where scam looked a little less prevalent than previous years. Then again, an agency called FP7 was disqualified from the Dubai Lynx earlier this year for a string of fake ads – like the one opposite for Samsung.

This is a sensitive issue, though, especially for anyone who has spent any length of time in Asia. I think it is sometimes unfair to view scam as a purely Asian phenomenon; there is plenty of evidence to point the finger at Western markets too. But there’s no denying that many agencies in places like Singapore have built strong awards machines that revolve around work of uncertain parentage.

Twitter’s Biz Stone explores money-making options

Biz Stone

My 48 hours in Cannes were certainly eventful, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the event had barely started by the time I had to leave. Luckily I got the chance to interview the very affable Twitter co-founder Biz Stone. There will be a few upcoming PRWeek stories that will run based on this interview and his Hill & Knowlton seminar – but I thought it was also worth talking a little first about his plans to start monetising the Twitter engine.

First up, Biz said that traditional advertising – like banners for example – was not the path that Twitter intended to take. Interestingly, he explained the reasoning in terms of the resources it would involve, versus the added benefit to users:

Ogilvy calls on Graves to move PR beyond ‘legendary lunchtimes’

Ogilvy & Mather global CEO Miles Young has just named Chris Graves as the agency’s new global CEO of its PR unit. This story in PRWeek has all the details.

I think Miles had his tongue in cheek when he made this comment to me:

“[Chris] has a great ability to reframe traditional PR from being legendary lunchtimes to being rich content for clients.”