Inside the fictional world of award-winning ads

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Ghost ads

Campaigns created in the absence of a client brief go by many names, depending on the level of eventual client involvement. If a campaign is initiated by an agency, presented to the client, and eventually approved, run, and paid for by that client, then the work is typically referred to as a proactive campaign. 

But things can get murky pretty quickly. Campaigns created without a brief, approved only after production, and barely run (for example, a solitary placement in an obscure magazine) will, in all likelihood, be labelled outright scams by critics, even if the client paid for them. If a campaign was created without client knowledge or approval and falsely attributed to a brand, that’s a ghost ad, regardless of whether it ran somewhere. The region’s most infamous ghost ads were created by FP7 Doha back in 2009. The agency was subsequently stripped of its agency of the year title by the Dubai Lynx, as well as two golds, four silvers, and a bronze for producing fake work for Samsung, HiGeen Mouthwash, and Nissan. 

“In digital, a ghost ad is a test. In awards, it’s a lie,” says the creative behind AdBasha, a satirical platform exposing the region’s dodgy work. “A ghost ad is a beautiful piece of work that never worked. There was no brief from the client, it never launched, was never actually seen – unless you were on the jury or happened to scroll past the award-winning case film on LinkedIn. Sometimes, though, it was approved… just for the signature on the entry form purely to please the agency gods and book a ticket to La Croisette. The brand attends the party. The agency gets the glory. The public? Still blissfully unaware this campaign ever existed.”

The scale of the problem? Enormous, says Hubert Boulos, founder of Das Kapital and a former chief executive at DDB Middle East. He estimates that, since the launch of the Dubai Lynx, around 99 per cent of winning work has been proactive. Rather than highlight that work, which would require an encyclopaedic level of commitment, Boulos points to five campaigns – FP7 Cairo’s ‘The Line Up Song’ for Coca-Cola Egypt, JWT Cairo’s ‘Fakka’ for Vodafone Egypt, Elephant Cairo’s ‘Never Say No to Panda’, DDB’s ‘Preserving Pride’ for Persil, and Wunderman Thompson’s ‘Meet Sarha’ for STC – as genuine pieces of work. 

“There could be one or two more exceptions, but in the MENA region, the rule has always been ghost campaigns,” says Boulos. “No consumer ever sees anything. They only see the case videos, which are circulated with self-congratulatory messages on social media by the agencies and their authors. Actually, clients have added their own twist and started to commission ghost ads themselves. Recently, I heard that an agency’s brief was: ‘Get me a Lion.’ And I think the agency delivered.”

Exaggerated/fabricated results

This is pretty much standard practice. As an industry insider told ArabAd: “I don’t think I’ve ever worked on a case film that wasn’t complete bollocks.” Not only are campaign results routinely exaggerated, they are often unverifiable – to the point where agencies claim the most preposterous of outcomes. “When you are running a scam campaign the results are logically a scam too,” says Boulos. “In fact, most of the region’s awarded work cannot be understood by consumers without the case videos that accompany them.”

The majority of case films are works of fiction – bald-faced lies peppered with figures plucked from thin air. Reach and engagement are inflated, return on investment fabricated, and impact overstated or embellished. Hyperbole is everywhere. And since 99 per cent of the work is scam – as suggested by Boulos – why would anyone expect the results to be any different?

Goodvertising/Greenwashing

Historically, the most intense suspicion has been levelled at CSR campaigns. Not just because issues such as domestic abuse, poverty, the climate crisis, and animal rights pull on the heartstrings, but because they are the most susceptible to manipulation. From non-existent NGOs to ludicrous claims of saving the planet, CSR campaigns are the easiest to stage, the hardest to audit, and the most emotionally persuasive. If under suspicion, agencies can also dive for cover behind the defiance of ‘purpose’ and cloak themselves in moral virtue. 

“This should be noble,” says AdBasha. “Using creativity to solve real problems? Amazing. But somewhere along the way, we lost the plot. Today, it’s often just award-bait wrapped in recycled paper. Agencies invent a problem, solve it with a potato on Mars, then vanish. The brand? Doesn’t care. No follow-through. No impact. Just a pretty case study that wins metal but changes nothing. You know it’s a scam when the only people who benefited are the ones sitting at the agency’s bar on Friday. The world? Still a flaming bin.”

At Cannes, the Indian agency Talented was accused of exaggerating results and fabricating key details for the campaign ‘Nature Shapes Britannia’. The key concern? That the campaign’s sustainability claims were not only unsubstantiated but also contradicted by Britannia’s own environmental data. This, unfortunately, is by no means an isolated case. 

“From a regional perspective, a case that really stands out as a black mark against the entire industry is ‘Legally Bride’,” says an executive creative director who wishes to remain anonymous. “That was the most notable scam from the region, because there’s not really an issue with child brides in Lebanon and they said they changed the law, which never happened. They had people protesting outside parliament, and these people were art directors from Leo Burnett wearing white tennis shoes and bridal clothes.” 

AI-manipulation

This is a new one and a prime example of how scammers are evolving with technology. In many ways an extension of the fabricated results described above, DM9’s use of AI-altered footage, including clips lifted from CNN Brazil, has ushered in a new world of deceit. As AdBasha states, AI-manipulation is the new frontier of fakery. 

“Look, using AI to push creative is fair game in my books – if you’re honest about it,” he says. “But faking interviews, metrics, or people reacting to your work like it’s the second coming of sliced bread? That’s just Cannes cosplay. Some agencies are generating entire universes where the campaign ‘went viral,’ had ‘real reactions,’ and created ‘global conversation’ – all cooked in Midjourney and ChatGPT. The only real thing in the video is the awards budget.”

Who’s to blame?

Everyone. Agencies, creatives, awards shows, judges, clients. All continue to milk the awards circus for all it’s allegedly worth, undermining the credibility of agencies and the value they offer in the process. As Boulos states: “Instead of looking for solutions and fighting for our credibility and added value, we are digging ourselves a deeper hole.”

Agencies spend millions of dollars on awards entries and gala dinners, even as they lay off staff, outsource to cheaper markets, and reduce investment in staff development. What message does this send to the outside world? That fake work with fraudulent case studies is prioritised above real business impact, meaningful creativity, and the well-being of the people who bring that work to life.

Rather than discourage the production of scam ads, agencies encourage it. As Seyoan Vela, chief creative officer at Livingroom writes, instead of being punished, scammers are promoted. 

Meanwhile, juries are ill-suited for the task of weeding out illicit work. What is needed are jurors who aren’t just there to applaud creativity, but who “can see through the case studies and spot what’s inflated, what’s real, and what actually made an impact,” says AdBasha. “The responsibility shouldn’t fall entirely on the organisers or data analysts; it’s the judges who ultimately decide, so why not pick the ones who can genuinely tell the difference?”

Where now?

In a bid to lessen the harm caused by the scandals, Cannes Lions has introduced a integrity framework built on five key standards. These include mandatory client and agency sign-off on all entries, a new dual-layer human and AI fact-checking system, the potential for disqualification and multi-year bans for misconduct, an independent Integrity Council to oversee disputes, and an annual audit to ensure transparency and continuous improvement. 

“Creativity is only valuable if it’s credible,” said Simon Cook, chief executive of Lions. “And credibility must be earned, not assumed. These timely changes mark the beginning of a new era for us all – not just for Cannes Lions, but for the future state of global creative marketing.”

Too little too late? Possibly, unless wholesale, industry-wide change is a plausible goal.

Tahaab Rais, chief strategy officer for the Middle East and Turkey at Publicis Groupe, argues that, if award shows are serious about eliminating scams, the solution isn’t tighter checks or ‘no AI’ clauses. It’s far simpler: kill the case study film and presentation boards. “No more of us using voiceovers transforming invisible activations into global revolutions,” he says. “No more of us using dramatised narratives masking underperforming ideas. No more big boards with made up logos. Instead, let’s upload the actual, tangible work people experienced. The actual film, the genuine pre-rolls, the authentic banner, raw video clips of the stunt, true documentation of product innovation and usage.

“We should submit real results with verifiable sources, including data decks, links to verified news coverage, and screenshots of actual impact. Include signed client letters. Judges will then be made to evaluate the idea and execution, not the editing and animation of a case study. This is precisely why I enjoy judging the Jay Chiat Awards – they disqualify case study videos, demanding only the actual work itself.”

The likelihood of this being implemented? Low, at least in the short term. 

“It’s time agencies are rewarded for what we truly did, not what was reimagined later,” adds Rais. “It’s time award shows and jurors stop rewarding storytelling about work and start rewarding the truth of the work. This shift will, in turn, compel us as agencies to create better storytelling within our campaigns and focus on genuine impact. And that will lead to a better, more effective industry in turn. We will also save our talent a lot of late nights, weekends, and missed holidays. We will save a helluva lot of money. And avoid a lot of burnouts that these case studies cause.

“The onus is on entrants to submit real work with real proof. The onus is on jurors to watch the work, not just its trailer. This is the award show reform we genuinely need to break the cycle everyone is stuck in. And we’ll all be better for it.”