Triad calls Chillies 2010 A Scam: Goes to court against Chillie Blue Print Committee 2010
May 3, 2010 12:56 pm
Triad, as an active member of the 4’A (Accredited
Advertising Agencies of
For three consecutive years Triad was adjudged the No.1 agency at the Chillies. With last year’s last minute arbitrary change of the Blueprint tally table, Triad was ranked second and Leo Burnett first.
Immediately after Chillies 2009, Triad raised objections to last minute Blueprint changes, at which point the industry came to a consensus to not effect such last minute changes in the future.
However, much to our dismay this year too we received the Blueprint 2010 via email only on 25 March 2010 (whereas the material eligible to be entered for Chillies 2010 was from January to December 2009) where once again we realized that certain critical changes that were both draconian and punitive have been introduced to the Blueprint.
Understanding the vulnerability of these changes to manipulation and foul-play as per our experience the previous year, we immediately took action to communicate our concerns based on the following:
a) According to these new changes, an agency was required to be a member of either 4A’s or IAA, barring Phoenix O & M from participating at Chillies 2010.
b) Introducing a penalty on what was “deemed scam” material, where a panel of agency nominees would sit in judgment of a competitor agency’s entries and decide on very subjective terms whether the entry should be deemed scam or not. In the event they thought so, to inflict minus points prior to the awards show it self. We felt that this system would undoubtedly leave room for manipulation, unfair abuse of authority and of course become a mad man’s playground.
c) In addition, numerous other questionable changes were included into the Blueprint 2010, which was known only to the members of the Blueprint Committee until it was circulated just a few weeks prior to the date when the entries for the awards show were being called.
Our primary objection to this practice of last minute changes to the Blueprint is due to the retrospective nature of the document, which gives unfair advantage to the Blueprint members, which includes certain manipulative elements who have been so accused of by fellow agency heads.
A scrutiny of the changes inflicted to the Blueprint over
time and time again show how the primary objectives for which the Chillie
Awards was formed are now being ignored. An awards show fashioned on
This drastic deviation from the primary objectives of the Chillies, negates the purpose of the advertising industry shunning the previous SLIM awards to form an awards show of their own, to recognize outstanding creativity and encourage global participation by local agencies.
In this light, after many verbal and written appeals to the Chairman of the Blueprint Committee and the people involved with the Blueprint changes, we were compelled to seek legal redress to arrest this unfair manipulation for the betterment of the industry, which has the potential to not only compete regionally but globally.
On the request of the Trustees and giving due consideration to the industry’s reputation in the face of foreign judges involvement in the event which is due to take place in the coming week, we have decided to refrain from requesting for an enjoining order on the awards show but will proceed with legal action against the perpetrators in order to recreate an equal opportunity status for the awards, where persons with ulterior motives and manipulations will not be able to inflict unfair changes at any future awards show.
In short:
Triad is against –
1) Deviating from the primary objectives set out in the original Chillies mandate.
2) Bringing last minute Blueprint changes with retrospective effect towards achieving personal gain rather than common objectives.
3) Allowing individuals with vested interest to manipulate the awards show.
4) The hypocritical nature & behavior of certain individuals and their attitude to bring in punitive action while they themselves are guilty of the crime.
5) Scam entries as per the Blueprint definition but also stand strong against those who look to this concept to penalize competition in a subjective manner.
6) Plagiarism, which the Blueprint has not inflicted as strong a penalty as that deemed scam.
7) Marginalizing the smaller agencies, which have been prevented form competing on a level playing field.
Being a 100% Sri Lankan agency, we have worked tirelessly
for the past 17 years to preserve the integrity and ethical standards of this
industry. We have fought long and hard to obtain a level playing field for
smaller agencies to compete & be recognized because this is the only way
where
We hope our deliberated step will begin a new era of
transparent, ethical and mutually beneficial growth for both marketers and ad
agencies in