• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, June 30, 2014

What would Cannes Lions be without a little controversy every year? This year's controversy comes to us from Panasonic, whose media agency, UM Australia, says it did not place the ad which won the brand a Silver Press Lion. Of the snafu, UM Australia CEO Mat Baxter said: “We have reviewed the winning Cannes print work for Panasonic and can confirm that UM did not book any Australian media activity featuring the creative material in question. It is important to note that Panasonic or Saatchi & Saatchi themselves may have booked media space without our knowledge and we would encourage you to reach out directly to both of them for ultimate confirmation.” Panasonic and Saatchi & Saatchi have declined to disclose where or if the ads ran. Ad tracking company Ebiquity did not find evidence that the ads ran anywhere. And so it goes. Another year, another scam.

Oh, good God! We thought we had bid good riddance to Donny Deutsch once and for all. But it seems the man -- a modern day Roger Sterling with fewer manners -- simply will not go lightly into the night. The former CNBC host now wants to do a reality TV show that is...wait for it...all about him! Of course it would be all about him. What else does Donny like to talk about more than himself? But the networks aren't biting. One source says: “He has all the money in the world. He has ladies throwing themselves at him, and all he wants is to be on TV. It’s the one thing he cannot seem to accomplish. He doesn’t understand why it hasn't been snapped up. So far no one has bought it.” His most recent television work was CNN's “Get to the Point,” which was cancelled after one week and described as “four people arguing over nonsense, and advertising guru-turned-TV pundit Donny Deutsch hogging the camera and talking down to his co-hosts.” Sounds like an apt description of Donny.

Seth Godin says New York and America, in general, are way behind the rest of the world when it comes to innovation. This came in the form of comment to South African ad man Tom Fels who, while in New York at a conference, shared his thoughts about South Africa being a little behind the times and might never catch up with the world. Fels writes: "His response was remarkable. He told me he thought we weren’t behind at all, for being behind was wholly relative. In many aspects New York is behind, the United States is behind. And, in the bigger picture, the concept of relative comparison makes that difference insignificant. Perhaps we are right where we need to be for our marketplace and for what it is able to sustain."

Every agency's got a content creation division now, right? After all, what with the growth of content marketing, inbound marketing and native advertising, it only makes sense. Che is jumping in now with a model that will, in their own words, "flip the traditional model on its head." And that's not all. The new offering will also use a "proprietary algorithm" that will enable "content Darwinism." Seriously? Content Darwinism? That's got to be the best nonsense buzzword we've heard in months .