Australia : M&C Saatchi & Carat facing an agency review
August 6, 2008
It appears that Saatchi & Carat are both going to be facing a review for their work on the 1/2 billion dollar campaign promoting Australia to the world. The ads have been run in the United States and Europe like wildfire… and now we find out that the way it was awarded to the firms were less than transparent…. akin to shady backroom deals as the board of directors appeared to have a financial interest in both firms. The article implies that they only got business by infecting the board of directors… pretty wicked stuff.
Tourism Australia has had its fair share of controversy since its founding, centred on its “Where the bloody hell are you?” campaign, created by advertising agency M&C Saatchi.
The ANAO report questioned the handling of the M&C Saatchi deal and another one with media planning and placement agency Carat — contracts that between them cost more than $184 million.
Tourism Australia was not transparent enough in evaluating the tenders for the jobs, gave insufficient thought to the tenderers’ financial viability, and had started work before the contracts were in place, the report concluded.
A Tourism Australia spokesman said yesterday both contracts had now expired and the process of appointing new creative and media placement agencies had been “significantly” improved.
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