ASIA-PACIFIC – INDIA, APRIL 1, 2013 – JWT India has given chief creative officer/managing partner Bobby Pawar and Blue Hive creative director Vijay Simha Vellanki the pink-slip after a series of sexually offensive poster ads for Ford Figo was entered into Goafest, India’s top awards show.
On Friday, the agency tried to pull out the poster ads, one of which shows scantily clad women bound and rammed in the trunk of a Ford Figo hatchback, with former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi taking the front seat. The issue has been blown up into a controversy when the fake ads surfaced online, earning the ire of an international audience. JWT and Ford India have offered an official apology, including an announcement on the dismissal of key persons behind the ad effective immediately.
According to Goafest official Sashi Shinha, the client might have been oblivious to the content of the ads as the approval letters for submission to the festival were quite general. Despite the controversy, Ford has stated that its relationship with JWT India remains intact.
Prior to joining JWT in 2012, Pawar was the chief creative officer of DDB Mudra Group. He has also worked for Ogilvy Mumbai, Tara Sinha Associates and Rediffusion in India, and has served at the New York offices of Ogilvy & Mather and BBDO.
Following the JWT conflict, Creativeland Asia founder and creative chairman Sajan Raj Kurup stood down from his role as Goafest jury chair for Digital. He points to the rumors and controversies surrounding the awards, and stands by his company’s decision to stay away from awards in India until the industry takes up the issue on scam seriously.
Earlier in March, Ogilvy India has decided to skip Goafest 2013 "for various (undisclosed) reasons". Ogilvy is considered as a regular winner at the Creative Abby, bagging a Grand Prix last year and a considerable number of metals in 2010 and 2011, and the Creative Agency of the Year title in 2005.
