Belding Awards campaign raises eyebrows.

One member resigns after protesting mailing content

Venice-based ad agency TBWA Chiat/Day Inc. got an unusual opportunity last year. By winning the overall sweepstakes at the 1995 Belding Awards presented by the Advertising Club of Los Angeles, it was given complete artistic freedom to design the call for entries for this year's award ceremony.

But too much freedom can apparently be a bad thing, at least in the advertising business, The venerable Chiat/Day, the largest ad agency in L.A. County, responded with a campaign that ruffled feathers throughout the local ad industry, prompted at least one prominent club member to resign, and led to an open protest letter to the Los Angeles advertising community signed by a group of highly respected ad executives.

Mad at mailings

Chiat/Day's campaign included three mailers sent out to Ad Club members soliciting entries for the 1996 Belding Awards, an annual competition to recognize outstanding advertising campaigns, with winners announced at a dinner ceremony April 9. One mailer pictures a nude woman posed suggestively over a guitar: the caption reads, "We just couldn't pass up the opportunity to share with you a picture of a beautiful 1958 Gibson six-string acoustic guitar."

A second mailing is a fold-up poster featuring a color photo of two collies mating. A third mailing includes a picture of an obese woman with radio commentator Rush Limbaugh's face superimposed on her.

Member resigns

The campaign so outraged Jean Craig, former partner with ad agency Kresser/Craig (now Kovel/Kresser & Partners) who retired from advertising in 1993, that she wrote an open letter to the advertising community protesting the mailings.

The letter was signed by about a dozen prominent ad executives including partners Gerry Rubin and Larry Postaer of Santa Monica-based Rubin Postaer & Associates and Craig Campbell, president of the L.A.-based EvansGroup Inc. In addition, broadcast division President Bill Croasdale at Western International Media resigned from the Ad Club because of the campaign.

"The work demeans people, in general, and the awards in particular," reads the letter. "It represents a cheap way to get attention. It represents the sophomoric confusion of vulgarity with edge."

Craig tried to convince the editors of Adweek to print the letter verbatim, but the weekly trade publication instead ran an article about the controversy earlier this month.

To Craig, Chiat/Day's campaign was particularly offensive to women. However, one of the campaign's creators at Chiat/Day was a woman, art director Kelly Beck. She said she found nothing offensive in it.

"I think the people who found it funny were the ones we were trying to target, who are the creatives at the agencies," Beck said. "The women I've talked to in the advertising industry thought it was funny."

Chiat/Day's response to the controversy has been less than contrite. On March 8, it sent out invitations to the awards ceremony with, printed on the cover, an actual complaint letter about the ad campaign.

Inside, below the caption, "Gee, maybe she's right. How about something like this?" is a sarcastic parody of a call for entries ad picturing a bowling pin inside a Belding awards cup. The copy is peppered with trite bowling puns.

Bob Elen, president of the Ad Club and a partner at downtown L.A.-based Davis, Ball & Colombatto Advertising Inc., said the club's board of directors had hoped to "push the envelope a little bit" when it agreed to give complete control over the call for entries to Chiat/Day.

He expressed regret that some in the ad community were offended. On the other hand, he said he has received more calls supporting the campaign than opposing it.

"For the most part, the creative community applauded the work," Elen said. "For every awards show that exists, there will be a certain amount of bitching and complaining. That's life."

Asked whether, as a result of the controversy, the Advertising Club would change its policy of giving complete freedom to the Belding Sweepstakes winner, Elem said that decision will have to be made by the next board of directors, which will take office in September.