Test case opens in Supreme Court with Ikon accused of overseeing a ‘failed campaign’
A former client of Ikon Communications has told a court that a marketing campaign drawn up by the agency was “a complete flop” that generated “no sales” in a case that is understood to be without precedent in Australian legal history.
Advangen, a company that manufacturers hair treatment products, blames the agency for a failed campaign that had a paltry impact on sales and included a TV ad that it claims completely missed its target audience.
so a multi million dollar TVC campaign appears on national mainstream TV channels and the client wasn’t aware of the TVC or the media plan. Oh dear
Sounds like Ikon have a slam dunk case.
If I engage an architect, approve their designs, have the place built, approve and take delivery, but then my friends don’t like it … can I sue?
I did have some involvement with this client. Called in to try and generate some sales post Ikon.
Clients have a responsibility to brief correctly, understand the media and creative plan and how it will be executed. I will say that in my view large Agencies like this have very little understanding of Direct Response media and what is required to make a DR campaign work. DR is hard work and Agency set and forget tactics don’t work.
Not sure if the client was mislead in this case but the strategy was hopelessly flawed.
OOH should use that last paragraph as part of a future campaign.
Can’t believe any agency would touch these people ever again. What a joke.
So a TVC aired for 3 months without seeing the actual creative? I’m confused
The client must have approved the TVC’s prior to broadcast.
At the risk of sounding Sco Mo, there is an old saying, “ You pay, you pray”. No agency or media outlet can ever or should ever guarantee a ROI.
As a publisher, I’m interested in the pre pay terms referenced by Icon to various media outlets.
Has Icon revised its terms to media?
The 45 days post publish of ad billing system, in effect means we are facilitating cash flow to agencies and puts strain on publisher cash flow. On one occasion we were caught up in an insolvency after providing a service and we did not get paid.
“The court was shown two TV ads, one targeted at women which ran on Seven and pay TV channels, and another aimed at men which ran on digital platforms. ”
So hair loss is a problem largely for men than so than women. What dunce made the decision to run the TV ads targeted at women and not men? Surely the logic would be to swap them around?
errrr, TV is a heavily female skew medium
Unless you nail your STV channel mix
A lot of communication problems here, I’m gonna get my popcorn out and watch this develop.
This screams of a lack of control & direction from the client. If what was being proposed was off brief, why didn’t the client call that out during scope?
If the poetic nature of the Directors ambitions with the brief wasn’t going to hit the mark with the audience, why didnt the client say so?
A sales KPI of $750k on a billing of $575k, why didnt the client pull out when there was clearly no ROI?
Am I missing something or was there a brief without a strategy?
“A great ad campaign will make a bad product fail faster. It will get more people to know it’s bad.”
Take some responsibility for your own marketing guys, geez.
This campaign will be interesting but not for the reasons everyone thinks.
A defence from the agency will be contractually agencies are not required to act in the best interests of the client – and are technically and legally not an agent nor required to place client interests above their own.
Which ultimately means the ‘media agency’ is no more liable than a TV network.
Only way the client can claim anything is by showing evidence of misrepresentation by Ikon around what they claimed would occur (and what could reasonably be interpreted as an outcome) and what actually occured in both results and also the audit.
I really thought, at first, that this article was going to be an Onion-style, ironic comedy piece… and who could blame me, with byline triggers like:
• Marketing Campaign a ‘Complete Flop’
• Company Pulls Ad After Poor Results.
• TV Ad Completely Misses Target Audience
• Paltry Sales Results ‘Unprecedented’
Let’s face it, hair restorer has been a tough product to sell since the earliest times. Dr Dulcimara, or the snake oil peddlers of the wild west began flogging a remedy for baldness on the same circuit as love potions, universal youth serum and beauty soap. We have had problems before here in Australia, from the lizard fat salve and snake oil peddlers of old, to the Doctor who wasn’t and his “healthy hair” ads of yore.
Sometimes, if the nut is too hard to crack, you need to get a bigger hammer, or a sharper axe.
I can’t believe a client approves TV creative the complains about it after the campaign has run. Hello anyone awake there?
Who invests $575k for $750k sales??
Are they all stupid?
“Halasz said she understood that to mean Ikon was confirming that it could hit the targets.”
Typical chief exec glossing over the details then trying to pass the buck it sounds like. This should be instantly dismissed and Advangen sound like they need more competency at the top.
As a lover of irony, I really appreciate that the makers of a “hair tonic” are blowing up about being misled over spurious claims about effectiveness.
Comment of the week.
Nailed it.
Sorry guys it works!
I think the “sophisticated poetic backbone” needs to go to a chiropractor.
*munches popcorn* This’ll be interesting…
I hope the client wins regardless. I noticed a lot of marketing agencies don’t truly care about their clients.
Sometimes, marketing agencies know how to sell themselves but not their clients’ products and services.
For the record Evolis has been proven to be clinically effective in preventing hair loss by the TGA and FDA. This isn’t snake oil.
An interesting case…pass the popcorn.