Welp, it’s somehow rare but it seems every year the perfunctory fake case study gets caught and highlighted. Catch one rat so the others may escape type of thing. No one is surprised that it comes from a Brazilian agency let’s be real. The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is investigating one of its 2025 Grand Prix winners after it was alleged that a case study video submitted with the entry was doctored to provide false information.
The winner in question is DM9, a São Paulo-based agency that is part of the Omnicom Group-owned DDB network. Its “Efficient Way to Pay” campaign for Consul Appliances won the Creative Data Grand Prix on Wednesday. The campaign also won a Bronze award for Creative Commerce.
“Efficient Way to Pay” is centered around helping Consul convince Brazilians that old appliances are costly to run. Consul provided low-income families with new, more energy-efficient appliances. Then, the customers paid for them over time through the very savings they saw on their electricity bills generated by transitioning to the new machines.
In a video sent to Ad Age, an anonymous source claims that DM9’s case study altered certain aspects of the video, including a customer’s testimonial, a TED Talk by North Carolina State Senator DeAndrea Salvador and a Brazilian CNN report.
CNN Brazil has filed a formal complaint alleging that some of their footage used as manipulated.
Cannes has not made a comment and have not said if they will take away DM9s Lion because why would they, even though DM9 have officially acknowledged their wrong doing. They have however NOT admitted AI was used although everyone and their blind-deaf-deaf grandma could see they did. But hey admitting you falsified a case study to win a Cannes is fine, but I using AI is where they draw the line. 🤷♂️
As a follow up, it should be noted that the CCO and Co-President of DM9, Icaro Doria, has agreed to be the fall guy cuz of course he is. Leaving the agency with a massive golden parachute, we are sure to see him pop up in another agency soon.