Scam ads—the pointless, pathetic, pyrite, polluting the pages of advertising annuals the world over.

Unfortunately, as recent history has shown us, it took DDB Brazil, the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the world’s least sensitive creative team to bring this conversation into the public discourse. No matter where you stand on the WWF campaign, it would be hard to argue that scam ads make the world a better place.

There is a solution.

But before we get to that, it’s time for a little disclosure: I have done scam ads. A lot of them. I have also approved them. And I have entered them into shows. To give you an idea of just how guilty I am, I will admit to having done a three-spot television campaign for the Museum of Miniatures. Yes, TELEVISION. (I know, I know.) Ironically, I had far more success with real work and I certainly enjoyed a greater sense of accomplishment doing it.

Okay, back to the point of this article.

The One Show, to their credit, has stepped up to the challenge and changed their rules to try and limit this kind of bullshit. (Time will tell how successful that will be.) But, frankly, it’s all a little disingenuous. It doesn’t take any amount of brilliance to figure out that most of the work being awarded in these shows is not real. Seriously, how large is the global advertising budget for Tabasco? If you go by award show entries it dwarfs Coke and Pepsi combined. (Don’t even get me started on the all-you-can-eat buffet of steakhouse ads.)

The problem is that awards are the only common-currency that exists to compare the work of agencies. And, as with any currency, there are some who will resort to fraud to enrich themselves. This has led to a giant Ponzi scheme, with individuals and agencies that successfully game the system, sitting atop a worthless pyramid of counterfeit campaigns. (On Wall Street it’s guys like Bernie Madoff. On Madison Avenue it’s guys like Tony Granger.)

So, how do we solve it?

Simple: Shame.

We pick a date after which we as an industry will no longer tolerate this foolishness. (April 1, 2010 seems rather appropriate.) Then, we tell everyone in our industry that if they dare to enter anything dubious from this day forward, we will add their work and their names to a permanent list housed on a website that calls them out for their stupidity. We’ll call it “scamsoftheworld.com.”

Wait, I have a better idea: Why don’t we have them post their own work and names on the site. Oh, and, we won’t tell them that they’re inadvertently making fools of themselves. And then we’ll change the name of the site to adsoftheworld.com.

Yeah, that’s a plan.

“Here’s to you real ad-men of genius.”

Cheers.

- Craig Crawford