Recent scam ad scandals here and abroad refocused attention on an industry practice that sees work entered into awards that either wasn’t approved by client or never ran in the media. Both are required to legitimately enter into creative awards.
What is the official Loeries position on scam ads? Andrew Human, managing director of The Loerie Awards, provides some insight:
“The Loeries has had rules in place for several years which do not allow non-legitimate entries. All the rules of entry can be viewed here: http://www.theloerieawards.co.za/default.aspx?link=how2enter_legal. Notable points are:
– The Loerie Awards has the right to request written proof of initial publication/air/launch date, as well as written proof of all required permissions.
– Any entry that has infringed any of its country of origin’s laws or voluntary or regulatory codes of practice is not eligible. In the case of South African entries, any advertisements withdrawn or ruled against by the Advertising Standards Authority in terms of their Code of Advertising Practice are not eligible for entry.
– By submitting an Entry the Entrant warrants that … it has obtained all necessary permissions, usage rights and waivers of moral rights from all third parties who contributed to or commissioned the Entry, including without limitation the advertiser whose goods or services the Entry promotes…
In addition to the above, the eligibility criteria state:
– All work must be commercially published, launched or aired to a substantial audience for the first time between 1 June 2008 and 31 May 2009.”
Human also says that any member of the Jury may question the validity of any piece of work and that he is satisfied that the in place measures are adequate to prevent fraudulent entries from making it into the submitted entries.