Today I just saw the news about the scandal of TBWA. TBWA China helped adidas do a world-known campaign for China Pride, however TBWA Paris did a campaign for Amnesty International on abuse of Chinese atheletes. It raises serious discussion online, some blogger even said that all Chinese employees in TBWA should resign.
I think in such a global organization, it must be very hard to manage controversial accounts. In agency world, business is business. Even in the same office, agency may use different names to handle different brands in similar categories, like DBS credit cards and American Express. It did have certain level of work ethnics, but it is not tightly guarded as other industries.
I guess this may not be first incident happened - Oil Company vs. Greenpeace, Tobacaaco Company vs. Youth Anti-smoking fun. Why this incident become such a big issue because it involves in political elements - China Pride vs. China's human rights. And you can see the power of Internet getting bigger and bigger. It gives global company a big challenge to manage its online reputation.
Hopefully this scandal resolved soon. And my friends from TBWA can have a good sleep and get ready for the Olympics.
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB121598805607649301-HHdFzpqx7AfkmxWbyrD0JGbGwZM_20090714.html?mod=rss_free
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I read this a while ago. Personally I don't see any problem. first off, the two commercials are from two different offices. second, they made the commercials for the interests of their clients. They shouldn't reflect the political stance of the advertising company in the first place. It's not really about ethics. The only thing I see is the overreaction of the Chinese employees of TWBA. as a civilized nation, people of China should have better tolerance towards criticisms.
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