Another 9/11 controversy looms over Saatchi & Saatchi Paris print ad for Courrier International
With the ninth anniversary of 9/11 just days away, Saatchi& Saatchi Paris has released a Twin Towers themed print ad for Courrier International – the Paris-based French weeklynewspaper which translates and publishes excerpts of articles from over900 international newspapers – that isbound to upset the Americans.
Not for the same reasons as DDBBrazil’s much publicised WWF scam ad that stirred up award shows and saw atoughening of entry rules, but Americans, justifiably, do get very offended by tasteless 9/11 themed ads. The ad is getting panned on Ads of the World and has just popped up on Adfreak.
65 Comments
cunts
I am an American, and I am justifiably offended.
You would of thought they would see that coming.
Yeah, cause if they’d read the Courier, they’d have lowered the WTC would they? I don’t get it.
I am deeply offended. As a creative.
Parisians weren’t cracking such jokes in the summer of 1944.
I’m sure there’s a job waiting for these guys somewhere in the middle east.
If it wasn’t for the blood of many thousands of Americans, the cunts would be speaking German today.
And I’m not American, but my grandfather fought on Juno beach to liberate them.
When scam is seen as the blight that it truly is, we can all move on and do our jobs without desperate shit like this turning our industry into a laughing stock.
I have to say that, once more, I’m ashamed of the state we’ve got ourselves into.
And it’s always saatchis.
May your daughters marry goats and your sons get jobs in advertising.
Agree with 12.14. French hacks.
just think of the attitude that ran alongside with this creative, to get it through , makes me cringe even more.
fuckers
Watch how Saatchis handle this. “Oh we had no idea this came out of the creative department. We’ll hunt down those responsible and get to the bottom of it. They will be severely dealt with”.
The CD’s position will be safe whilst the creatives will be shipped off to Asia. Just wait and see.
More importantly this just goes to show how many creative leaders out there have no fucking idea about the world outside of advertising. Socially and morally bankrupt fucking retards.
Listen to you lot – yes, it’s tasteless, but did anyone stop to wonder why a French publication would put an English copy line on an ad (that’s illegal in France isn’t it?).
Or why the copy line is set in Futura which is clearly not in the Courrier’s CI?
Or wonder about the dodgy Photoshop job on the twin towers?
Looks like Ads of the World got duped into publishing someone’s hoax ad… And Saatchi’s are taking the rap?
It’s a shame enough Americans aren’t offended by the terror they inflict on other countries. It was only 10 years after the Vietnam war that they began making entertainment out of the Vietnamese’s suffering in the form of Rambo and other gung-ho, let’s rewrite history type movies. I’m sure the same was true with regards to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. September 11 was a horrific event, and yes, at this point it’s not wise to exploit it, but as Australians we should not get sucked into this one-sided Oprah-esque emotional sentimentalism that infects the American mainstream psyche.
In response to Anonymous 12:43, America was reluctant to enter the war in Europe and declared itself neutral despite the fall of many Europe countries to Nazi Germany and the horrors of the concentration camps. Indeed, the extent of their involvement (Japan and the Pacific excluded) was mostly in the form of providing lucrative loans to help fund it. America, some believe, was exploiting the opportunity to hasten the fall of the British Empire (they ensured Britain paid for every plane, tank and bullet provided which financially crippled them for many years) and, seeing that the Russians we’re poised to capture and control much of Europe, rushed in at the last minute to ensure they enjoyed some of the spoils.
So more than likely, the French would be speaking Russian or French and it would have been us, here in Australia speaking Japanese. We can at least thank America for that.
The French have always been bitter and antagonistic toward the two cultures that have had bigger, better and more recent empires than their own – namely Britain and America.
True that 12.14
Saatchi’s have completely lost it globally…..this is just one of many examples from an agency that has lost touch with the business it is actually in……
What an insensitive pile of utter shit.
This is what I mean by we need to grow up.
Tasteless to some, granted, but everyone has a different sense of humour.
I was horrified by the 9/11 tragedy, but I’m not offended by the advertisement and find it giggleworthy.
Oh – the advertisement is obviously working. I’d never heard of Courrier until 5mins ago.
i was going to crack a WW2 joke, and then I saw a tonne of people got in before me.
so all I have is ‘Wee’.
fkn frogs
oh btw, Matt, go get a documentary to cry on.
yeah, god bless hump day
Oh know, America is having a whinge, good. I know, let’s talk about the depleted uranium they use in their munitions, against international law may I add. The list of atrocities that the yanks have committed (to other and countries and their own people) would be enough to fill this blog many times over.
Anonymous 1:50… you know that as a fact or are you simply parroting something you heard on Fox News? Were the French bitter and antagonistic towards the Americans when they gifted them the Statue of Liberty in 1886? After all, you did say ‘always’. Quick, Wiki it and get back to me.
By the way, I think the ad is sensationalist and insensitive and should be judged within that context rather than holding it up as a commentary on French/American relations.
Gosh Matt, haven’t you seen Band of Brothers or The Pacific? Gosh.
I’ve worked at Saatchis [not in France] and enjoyed my time with them, but this represents everything i hate about advertising agencies and Saatchi’s obsession with awards..
It’s GOTTA be fake. They couldn’t be that dumb.
3.09pm you are an absolute twat.
How can it be okay to giggle at a terrorist atrocity like 9/11? What’s funny about it?
It’s not even a clever ad, it doesn’t make sense.
Go get a job flipping burgers at McDonalds where you belong, fucking moron.
I’m French and my writer is Canadian. We work in australia. Does that mean our ads will be judge by some comments like: ” bloody Australians” ????
Please….
Americans and French both suck. But the French look better.
Actually, Hollywood has never made a movie about dropping the H bomb. Not a one. It’s a taboo subject. There was a film in the 50’s heroing the pilot of the Enola Gay but that’s about it.
Admit it Anonymous 3:16PM, you weren’t going to crack a WW2 joke because you couldn’t think of one so you wrote that instead.
“Go get a documentary to cry on.” You’re kidding me right?
This has to be a joke, why would a Paris based newspaper, that translates articles from every language into French, produce an ad with an English end-line? Either way, I’m sure Courrier & Saatchi’s are in damage control, this is so offensive, but surely they’d have anticipated that.
I’m far more offended by what 1:25 said:
“The CD’s position will be safe whilst the creatives will be shipped off to Asia.”
WTF???? So Asia is the dumping ground for creative hacks?
Look at the award winners Moron. Alot come from Asia.
Dr. Strangelove, 4:15?
I’ll take your word Anonymous 4:15pm that Hollywood has never made a movie ‘specifically’ about dropping the H bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But it has been referenced and, as you say, heroic stories of bravery have been made of it for the purposes of entertainment. Which was my point.
And also, you have inadvertently proven my argument: the Americans are happy to criticise and debate the actions of others, but not their own.
We’re going around in circles here.
The idiots responsible for this ad needed to ‘learn to anticipate’ the shit they’re going to get for this.
Dr Strangelove isn’t about Hiroshima or Nagasaki, which is the point I was responding too.
Also, it’s not a Hollywood film. It was shot in London by Stanley Kubrick.
4.45PM What awards?
The ones for all those scam ads Asia is notorious for?
Do me a favour.
Hey Matt, stay down, little fella, stay down. It’s just… not your day, dude.
It was A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The H-bomb was post-WWII (1954) and detonated on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. Righto.
Matt, as well as gung-ho pro western war films, Hollywood also has made lots of movies about their unsavoury track record in conflicts around the world. I don’t think Apocalypse Now glorifies Vietnam. MASH was a satire based on Vietnam set in Korea.
The Deer Hunter. Three Kings. Casualties of War…jeez I’m boring myself now.
Let’s just agree this is a terrible, tasteless, ad and all concerned should be fired.
What’s the French word for victory?
I don’t know either, but thanks to the Americans they can enjoy snails every day of the week.
I’m deeply offended by how crap the idea is.
It’s gay, just like the French.
This ad is like having sex with an intellectually challenged little person-it aint big and it aint clever-what does kevin roberts have to say?love mark?isay skid mark
Just got asked in a survey how often we talk about the ethics of what we’re selling and how we’re selling it. I’d say not enough. Curious to know what everyone would say?
Fucking Dick Wads. I was 20 blocks from the towers, watching them fall. People I knew died. Others made it out and are facing a lifetime of trauma. If I saw these creatives I would punch them in the face. Seriously. Anticipate that, dickholes.
It makes me sick that someone would try to win an award out of this horrible event.
Yeah, scam sucks. Especially when the scam in question sucks.
It makes me seriously question the state this industry we’re in.
About scam:
I recently worked for a French guy who was all over the TBWA Paris awards blitz of 2002-2006 (not Erik, but someone just below him). Not only was he an utter c*** but he didn’t believe that good work could be done on actual briefs and his level of scamming I found ridiculous. He was convinced that 95% of the work at Cannes isn’t real and he also said to me that all his awards he won were from things that never ran. He also told me that at TBWA they hired freelance teams for doing their day to day, paying work, and the bulk of the creatives there were hired just to do scam. It’s a practice that is starting to be more common in agencies. I recently heard of a few agencies in Dubai that do the same. They hire teams that only work on spec work… and then they have the monkeys for the actual work.
I walked home a particular way when I was working in Auckland in 2006. I’d always pass the billboards in Parnell. One day, I saw a billboard for TVNZ, something to do with CSi or a crime show and it had black light on the billboard. However the black light didn’t work. It wasn’t strong enough to light up the billboard’s UV ink to make the message readable. It was just a white billboard. A few days later I was walking past when I saw one of the seniors from the agency and a photographer take a picture of this white billboard. Next month I saw it in Campaign brief and on the sites but it was not how it looked at all. They photoshopped the words onto the billboard and claimed that it worked.
In the pursuit of awards we kind of forget about our morals…
So the Love Mark ideology has gone ! …. and the Hate Mark has now truly been established – good on ya Kev & SnS boys Duh !
My, there’s a lot of moral indignation here. But admit it, most of you would do anything to win an award. I assume you’ll all be boycotting Cannes, then.
Agree, this an offensive piece of shit, but to slag the entire French population in one fell swoop is pretty unwarranted.
4.45. Did I say creative hacks? An old creative partner of mine was busted doing what Saatchis encourage them to do (scam) and was sent to Asia. He’s not a hack I can assure you but he was publicly hung out to dry and shipped off to Asia. He now continues to win awards, for yep, you guessed it. It’s no secret that when it comes to Cannes and winning Global network there’s a particular region that is called upon to do what’s necessary to help facilitate.
If you think that Asia is clean and all those campaigns are mass media then you’re the moron. I’ve been doing this for 15 years and it’s always been the epicenter of scam. Not denying the talent though.
12.30 doesn’t sound like a scam just an electrical fault!!. Dickhead.
anyone notice the palestinian flag at the bottom, adding insult to injury and insensitivity
9.14AM Well you obviously know the truth as it sounds like your ad
I’m not an American and I’m offended. Having a sense of common decency will do that. This just proves the French are a bunch of c*nts. The idea could have been applied to a thousand different scenarios, they had to pick this one close to an anniversary and while the wounds are still very fresh. Very clever… wankers!
ignore it and it will go away.
If you agree with me, add no more posts to this.
10.47 unlike you I know the full story. Dickhead.
11.04,Yeah, yeah, one bad ad equals “All French are cunts”. Puh-lease. You come off looking like the ignorant, small-minded buffoon you are. Is it any wonder we get a reputation as racists.
I may come across as a tasteless fuck.. but i like it and i see the humour in it. Sorry if im not allowed to think so…
4.46 not tasteless just moronic.
12:44 – I walked past that billboard every day, and every day it didn’t work… and yet it still appeared in all the awards photoshopped and scamtastic.
The ad is insensitive and tasteless without doubt, but so are the racist comments posted here. Should we now judge all Australians on the abhorrent bile you’ve just up-chucked?
4:46
Forget for a minute about the disturbing subject matter…what’s disturbing me is you thinking this is good advertising. Now that’s really disturbing.
12.44 as you say. you walked past it every day, it worked at night dickhead. And for the record dickhead, it was approved and paid for by the client. As i said before I know the full story, but why let the truth get in the way of a good story hey, dickhead. That wouldn’t interest you because you’re a nobody trying to big note yourself with a bullshit story. Let me guess, you’re one of those below average creatives that is a bit bitter about not doing any better than working in a crap agency in Auckland, yeah I know who you are.
Stop wasting this blogs readers time with your mis-informed bullshit and get back to walking to and from the crappy agency you work at and creating some average trite you’re known for. Have a good life dickhead.
Hey hey hey, girls, girls, please.
Winning awards is a great rush, winning awards off real briefs with real clients and real deadlines is like taking that great rush and purifying it until it would be lethal for anyone who hasn’t won an award off a not so real brief.
It’s way too pure for some.
But what we all need to realise is, our egos need to be petted because we’re reviled mostly by our friends and family who can’t understand what we do for a living, and revered by few who do the same.
Let it go. Let it go. We’re all on the same fix here.