New York Festivals sounds off on the WWF/DDB mess

In the ongoing saga of the DDB Brasil/WWF debacle, The New York Festivals is following in the footsteps of the One Club in officially condemning the “Tsunami” ads and the conditions that allowed it to slip into award shows. NYF Prez Michael O’Rourke says:

“New York Festivals has long been aware of and proactively involved in preventing so-called ‘scam-ads’ – ads that ran without the consent of the client or were lifted from other agencies.”

“Our first line of defense is our online judging system. We’ve found that having judges together in the same room in an isolated resort location can have a chilling effect on diligence. It’s human nature: no one wants to accuse an agency or creative team, especially if the person you’re accusing is a friend or associate of someone in the room”.

“New York Festivals initiated a system whereby Grand Jury judges are allowed to ‘flag’ a suspected scam ad simply by checking a box when viewing an entry online. Additionally, NYF judges are encouraged to write confidential comments online to support their suspicions. Upon being flagged, we will commence an investigation into the allegations.” 

“As a truly international show – we have entries from over 71 countries – we applaud more recent efforts, like those of the One Show to prevent scam ads from being awarded and hope that other award shows follow suit on these aggressive and very necessary approaches towards eliminating scam.”

It is interesting to note that while the New York Festivals believes that strong measures need to be taken, it doesn’t seem like they are planning to take that extra-tough next step in banning agencies and teams. Still, we have yet to hear anything about this subject from other big name shows like Cannes or Clios, so NYF deserves some praise for its efforts.

Whatever the case, 2010 is gonna be one interesting award show year.