Ogilvy & Mather - Controversies

Controversies

Ogilvy caused some controversy in 2004 when a reportedly discarded video advertisement for the Ford SportKa hatchback began spreading virally via email. The 40-second video, which shows a lifelike computer-generated cat being decapitated by the car's sunroof was apparently rejected by Ford, but still made its way onto the internet, sparking outrage among bloggers and animal rights groups.

Ogilvy also has been involved with the notorious Asia Pulp & Paper, a large logging company that has been convicted of illegal logging in three countries, and recently has built roads illegally into the last remaining habitats of the critically endangered Sumatran Tiger, but spent large sums on global advertising campaigns claiming 'sustainability beyond compliance'.

In 2005, Shona Seifert and Thomas Early, two former directors of Ogilvy & Mather, were convicted of one count of conspiring to defraud the government and nine counts of filing false claims for Ogilvy over-billing advertising work done for the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy account. In an e-mail, Seifert stated "I'll wring the money out of, I promise". Seifert and Early were sentenced to 18 and 14 months in prison, respectively. Seifert also was ordered to pay a $125,000 fine, in addition to writing a "code of ethics" for the ad industry as part of 400 hours of community service. Ogilvy & Mather repaid $1.8 million to the government to settle a civil suit based on the same billing issues and continues to produce anti-drug spots for the government.

Ogilvy Government Relations, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ogilvy Public Relations, is credited with playing an instrumental role in killing the controversial 2005 bid by Chinese oil company CNOOC to buy Unocal Corporation, which would then go on to merge with Chevron Corporation, an OGR client.

The company was involved with a controversy in May 2009 when a Clio Award was given to a campaign for the A & E History Channel. One of the associated images compared the American deaths at Pearl Harbor with the Japanese deaths after the bombing of Hiroshima.