Award hunting makes Saatchi&Saatchi lose business.

According to this article, Dr Martens fires Saatchi&Saatchi claiming they didn’t approve these executions and that the agency published them without the consent of Dr Martens. On the other hand, Saatchi&Saatchi London claims they did get approval for 1 (one) placement in 1 (one) magazine. The naive might think “oh well, there was a lack of communication, these things happen”. Here’s what I think. Saatchi&Saatchi London thought they had award material here. Dr Martens didn’t buy the idea. Saatchi&Saatchi insisted for just one placement (enough to permit them to enter the ads to all major award shows), Dr Martens agreed and told Saatchi&Saatchi that if the ads somehow get negative publicity towards Dr Martens, Saatchi&Saatchi will take responsibility/pay. That’s what I think, and it’s all speculation. We, of course, will never find out the truth. But in my heart I’m glad that the obsession for awards (most of the times in detriment of the consumer) and the “let’s do a ghost ad to win an award” attitude finally got someone to PAY and PAY BIG. I don’t think Saatchi&Saatchi doesn’t cry for the big client they lost right about now. As for what I think about the campaign… meh. They tried to hijack Kurt. And we all know Kurt wore Converse, not these . Poor research. Check out the other executions after the jump. Ads via