Silver award for effrontery

The insulting of the Romanian national flag received quite a lot of praise at the Effie Romania awards, as agency McCann Erickson got the silver awards in the newly created category "media efficiency" for the "American Rom" advertising campaign, for the Rom chocolate bar. The campaign, which was launched in early October last year, caused an outrage because it switched the colors of the Romanian flag on the wrapping to those of the American one, "so we can be proud when we are eating the bar".

Leaving aside the fact that Romania"s colors are red, yellow and blue, instead of brown, yellow and blue (as they appeared on the wrapping), the ad reflects on feelings protected by the Constitution and the Criminal Code.

• The Romanian Constitution, National Symbols Art. 12

(1) The Romanian Flag has three colors; the colors are positioned vertically, with the following order starting at the pole: blue, yellow, red.

• The Criminal Code, Offense brought to insignia, Art. 236

Any action which expresses contempt for Romania"s emblems is punishable by six months to three years in prison.

At the time McCann Erickson played both ends, and had prepared a second video clip in case the public reacted negatively (which is precisely what happened), in which it claimed that everything was a "joke" (which was just as outrageous, as if the Constitution is a laughing matter) and that the wrapping would remain unchanged, making it look like everything had been premeditated (when in fact the only thing that was premeditated was the double play, as there is no evidence that keeping the initial wrapping was part of the plan all along).

• The Effie awards are a 1968 initiative of the American Marketing Association of New York, to acknowledge the merits of advertisers and to promote the development of the profession in the US. Starting in 2008, the American Marketing Association granted Effie the rights to create a new entity, called Effie Worldwide, Inc.

The fact that a shameless advertising campaign gets an award is upsetting enough, but the fact does have its explanation: the awards aren"t given by the public, but by the advertising professionals.

Their criteria don"t include ethics.

The advertisers" criteria look at the "impact" and the "efficiency" of the campaign (the cost per influenced individuals influenced by the advertising campaign, or the number of people impacted per thousand lei spent - or Euros, or whatever).

Since the campaign was conceived to begin by offending the feelings of patriotism and continued by insulting the humor tolerance and individual intellectual abilities, it sparked many reactions in the press, including in BURSA.

All these reactions which of course provided the campaign free exposure, and increased the number of "impacted" people, for the same cost, and thus Effie found it worthy of receiving the silver award for efficiency.

Except there is something missing ...

In advertising theory, efficiency does not stop at measuring the number of impacted people per thousand lei.

No, the efficiency of the advertising is gauged by measuring the intention to buy the advertised product, and the number of sales.

Because every company needs more sales.

In the end, an advertising campaign for a product can only be called "efficient" if, it helped increase sales of the product enough in relation to the costs of the campaign.

The fact that the campaign"s shamelessness is drawing a lot of flak does not say anything about its efficiency when it comes to inciting people to buy (judging by the unfavorable reaction of the public, the people"s intention to buy would be falling).

In the end, before giving out the award, the Effie should have known for sure whether the sales of "Rom" chocolate have increased.

Did it know?

I don"t think so.

Two months ago, we tried to find out how about the evolution of the sales of the "Rom" chocolate bar (before and after the October campaign) and we were told to ask the McCann Erickson agency.

Which gave us the following answer:

"Unfortunately, we can"t give you details concerning budget or sales figures".

Did the people of Effie get a different answer?

I doubt it.

In fact, I think that they never asked the question at all.