108. Campaign podcast: Waitrose controversy, Big Awards & Christmas ads part two

The complaints from skin cancer patients around a scene where two farmers appear to be comparing sun tan lines in Waitrose & Partners' Christmas ad are likely to make many clients "risk averse". That's according to Emma de la Fosse, chief creative officer at Digitas UK, who was speaking on The Campaign Podcast. She said: "This kind of thing terrifies clients and it's really difficult to sell brave work to clients and to get clients to run it. Something like this will just make clients risk averse."De la Fosse added that she is not making these comments lightly as she herself has suffered from cancer.Waitrose has since apologised for the scene and is now airing a new version of the work which no longer includes the scene that has caused offence.Martin Beverley, chief strategy officer at Adam & Eve/DDB (the agency behind the ad "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas"), added: "It was intended to be light-hearted and true to life but we've very much listened to the feedback that we had and we very quickly re-edited the ad to amend that scene and it's back on air without that scene."Also on the podcast, Campaign Big Awards co-chair of judges Shelley Smoler, chief creative officer at Droga5 London, explained that the industry is at the "pinnacle of purposeful work". She added: "The heavy presence of it suggests that maybe we are reaching the end of an era. Of course it's important that we do good in the world but in terms of a creative trend there's definitely room for something new and it feels like it's coming."In part two of a review of Christmas work, the three guests critiqued Amazon "Joy is made" by Lucky Generals, Lego Group "Build a playful holiday" by The Lego Agency, McDonald's "The list" by Leo Burnett and Argos "Avalanche" by The & Partnership.The podcast was hosted by Gurjit Degun, creativity and culture editor at Campaign. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.