Saatchis responds to email wind-up

Singapore - Industry press inboxes received an email yesterday sent by a ‘John Tan', claiming to be a "concerned supporter of Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore" and warning recipients to "leave the agency alone".

The contents of the email claim to support Saatchis Singapore with perceived and unproven allegations that the agency is Singapore's "biggest offender" of scam ads - something which the agency's regional CD Andy Greenaway denies.

"The whole industry does it (scam) and there are differing degrees of scam. We don't do anything that hasn't been approved by the client. You want to talk about scam - there's nothing more fraudulent then an anonymous email," he said.

Regional CEO Asia Pacific for Iris Worldwide, Richard Bleasdale, who is against scam advertising, said the age old excuse that clients here don't buy these sorts of ideas is a smokescreen - the lower we as an industry set our bar, the lower the quality of work we will sell.

"Our business is about creating - and selling - brilliant ideas which are superbly executed for paying clients. No-one ever said it was going to be easy selling those ideas. But anyone who hasn't got the balls to do that shouldn't be in the industry," he said.

Bleasdale did not agree with the contents of the email and said that picking on individual agencies or people is not the way to deal with the issue in Singapore.

"This issue needs to be dealt with at a high level by the leaders of the industry - the agency heads, the industry association heads, the awards committees and probably with the backing and support of the major clients. The longer it's left undealt with, the worse our position will be. As a side-bar, I fully support the position of some agencies to do pro-bono work for charitable causes," he said.

The author of the email, who wrote from a ‘support.saatchi.singapore@gmail.com' address, went on to write that he was saddened by the "Roger Makak witchhunt". He said it is "outrageous" for advertising professionals to claim that Greenaway was not Makak as he had "made it abundantly clear" he had been responsible for every award winning Saatchis ad.

The controversy came to a head over a month ago when it was revealed that Makak, who was ranked number one in Campaign Brief Asia's rankings, was a work of fiction created by Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore. The name was in fact a pseudonym used by Greenaway.

"Roger Makak has been praised by an awful lot of people in the industry as a breath of fresh in an industry that has stagnated over recent years. It has shown us all that this business can still be fun. However, the fact a monkey has topped the creative rankings has put a few noses out of joint. And has been lambasted by those who revere convention and want to keep our industry firmly rooted in the past. Saatchi is about the future and Roger Makak epitomises the spirit of marketing innovation in the new and ‘all rules barred' world of marketing communication," he said.