So Marie Claire magazine ran a story (current issue) on shocking fashion and advertising images. The ad agency, NETWORK BBDO, got excited and pitched an idea to Marie Claire – an ad for Marie Claire on that very same topic. Marie Claire rejected the idea as it didn’t suit their brand. BBDO loved it regardless and they made it anyway.

They brought the final product back to Marie Claire who, once again, confirmed that they did not want it.Not before, not then, not ever.

As per Vanessa Raphaely’s blog, she felt they had “missed the point.”

Case in point:

So what did they do? They ran it anyway! Yup – the ad was published yesterday. But not for Marie Claire. Oh no.. They took it to a completely different company – CherryFlava to be exact. And you know where they ran the ad? I’ll tell you. They ran it in “The Voice” tabloid newspaper.

Have you ever read “The Voice” or similar? We’ve featured them before – or rather their lamp-post cardboard ads with headlines including “How To Pomp Like a Star” and “UFO Airport in Hout Bay.”

Essentially, they asked CherryFlava if they could attach their name to it. So they didn’t charge Cherryflava for the ad, they simply gave it to them – JUST to get it into the public domain.

Weird behaviour and a sad day for “traditional media,” and “traditional agencies,” I think you might agree?

This brings me straight back to a conversation I had recently about “scam ads” or “spec ads” – something that our South African advertising agencies are FAMOUS for. But not in a good way. I’m talking about ads that are made JUST to win awards. It is massively frowned upon overseas and our local guys are known to go as far as entering scam ads into awards without even the client knowing about it.

More focused on awards than selling the brand…. it’s not a new concept, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about it. It’s a touchy subject for the agencies, but for the man on the street it’s pretty hilarious what goes on in the agencies behind closed doors. They’re so consumed with winning awards they’ve forgotten their job is to connect with consumers and influence decision making.

I mean REALLY, is the brand here (CherryFlava) hitting the right target audience with The Voice ? This is how Cherryflava describes itself on their website:

Cherryflava is a world famous marketing company. This is our magazine dedicated to new trends emerging in business, marketing, advertising and design thinking – published daily from Cape Town.

How does that appeal to The Voice’s readership? Exactly – it doesn’t. It’s one thing for some random brand trying to get whatever exposure comes its way, but why would Cherryflava (a “world famous marketing company”) agree to attach its name to something so misdirected and incorrectly formulated and placed? Does that make them (“marketing experts”) look good to THEIR clients? No, it doesn’t. Unless, of course, you’re actually looking for a headless chicken to run with your brand?

Personally, I reckon they should be using this to promote House & Leisure magazine. Seriously – I’ve got actual tables like that at home, with real women. I don’t see what the big deal is. And no, I’m not exploiting women! The table-chicks at my place WANT to be there. I feed them and everything.

Read more about this shambles on cherryflava (here) and Associated Magazine’s Editorial Director, Vanessa Raphaely’s blog (here ).