Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Helene Chammas #3


McCann:

As soon as I entered McCann’s offices, I was fascinated how a professional atmosphere can be relaxed!

I was not expecting that their budgets were that important. Furthermore, I was not expecting that they covered such a wide scope of not necessarily related activities. For example, producing an ad for l’Oreal is quite different as an ad production for Mastercard. They require different creativity and strategy skills. 

In my point of view, having a worldwide coverage is a major opportunity. In addition, McCann is recognized as a major player in their field. I would say that one of McCann’s biggest challenge is to compete with other major players. They have to develop their competitive advantages in order to beat the other advertising firms in a world were growth has slowed. As we know, some major firms exist and fight for the same kind of budgets: WPP, Publicis-Omnicom…Another important challenge in order to beat this competition would be to innovate and to develop McCann’s creativity.

I would be thrilled to work in a company like this for many reasons. First, I am quite attracted by big size firms. Second, I love the variety of wide scope activities, and the fact that McCann is an international actor in advertising. I would love to work in an office environment as theirs: it is demanding and creative while being relaxed at the same time. A working environment as Google’s has always attracted me, thinking it was unique. I now discovered it exists in advertising, where I would like to pursue my carrier. A somehow similar environment in McCann extremely positively surprised me.

TTIY – American Apparel:

As I read about Dov Charney’s (CEO) sex scandals, I decided to learn more about his personality. I made some researches on him, which conducted me to his personal website:


Among all the informations I discovered regarding his life, one fact considering American Apparel’s policy seemed to be worth noticed. Dov Charney is supporting BUTT magazine and has decided since 2008 to sell it in his stores.



BUTT is a gay men magazine coming from Netherlands. As said in its description: “Submissions are unrestricted, as readers may send in interviews, letters, photographs, or articles ». As soon as one tries to enter the magazine’s website, it asks for the reader’s age, that must be over 18. This fact may give information on a sexual content that should not be shown to children.

How should the brand then deal with the fact that it produces children and teenagers’ clothes, which are sold in a shop, were magazines with “inappropriate” content are also in sale?
I will try, in my TTIY project, to learn more about this decision, and find out the amount of sold magazines.

Here is the letter that Mr. Charney has written to his mother regarding his BUTT’s supporting decision:

Dear Mom:

BUTT is an important art magazine that I support. No question, that it is going to offend people and it is my feeling that that is the nature of provocative art. At times, to make progress, you end up offending people. And people were offended by many things I have done over the years. But I did what I felt was right, especially from an art and creative point of view.

We are going somewhere with what we are doing, and no one is required to buy it. Many people have told me how much they appreciate our carrying the magazine. It has sold out in some stores.

Also, because some moralistic anti-gay forces opposed our carrying it within our company, I am committed to having it. I wanted our company to be open enough to accommodate this kind of magazine, and if I don't set the precedent now, it could become too late to get that done later.

We are also facing customs obstacles in Asia which I am committed to overcoming, on civil libertarian grounds.

Sexual freedom, art, and photography are important to me and I am standing firm on my support for BUTT.

Dov

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