Last week, Ogilvy & Mather's Vietnam branch returned two prizes won at the Cannes Lion International Festival of Creativity in June, citing an “error in judgement” in the production of the campaign materials.
In 2015, the agency’s pro bono campaign for the Rhino Rescue Project, titled “Saving Africa’s Last Wild Rhinos, by Poisoning Them” made the rounds on social media and throughout the blogosphere, reports Campaign Asia, drawing attention for its raw, direct tone and innovative approach to tackling to the issue. The gist of the campaign revolved around injecting rhino horns with a chemical that would poison humans but not the animals while at the same time widely promoting the danger of this poison to potential buyers, reports Ad Age.
The project went on to snatch a silver Direct Lion and a bronze PR Lion during the prestigious Cannes festival in France. However, recently Ogilvy announced that it would give the prizes back after the management team reviewed the campaign’s promotional materials.
“We determined that some elements of the campaign material created to support the NGO's efforts to reduce Vietnamese consumer demand for rhino horns did not run in-market as stated in our submission video," the agency said in a statement.
A Cannes festival spokesperson told Ad Age via email that they have nothing to add to Ogilvy’s statement. However, officials of the Rhino Rescue Project were not pleased about the agency’s sudden announcement.
"We only heard about it recently, and honestly, we are more disappointed about the impact the agency's negligence (at best) and/or sheer recklessness (at worst) could have on global rhino conservation efforts than about the awards being returned,” the project’s cofounder Lorinda Hern told the news source via Facebook.
Take a look at the campaign’s case study video below:
[Video via YouTube user Agency Life]
