Somebody is lying.

This is an update to my previous story regarding the anti-American ads designed by Ogilvy & Mather. I mentioned in that article that History Channel parent A&E Television Networks has been issuing cease & desist letters to websites and others who were running the Ogilvy designed advertisements that featured the History Channel logo. This afternoon, I found one website which has already received a letter: MarkLives.com.

MarkLives received a cease and desist letter from AETN, parent company of The History Channel, demanding we remove advertising material for The History Channel from this site. For the record, the campaign in question was submitted by Multichoice agency Ogilvy Johannesburg, along with the information in the copy still below to MarkLives.com who published it in good faith.

The AETN letter read in part;

AETN is the owner of numerous trademarks associated with its History network, including the world famous marks THE HISTORY CHANNEL and the H logo (which are the subject of numerous trademark registrations worldwide).

Neither the use and display of AETN’s trademarks nor the purported advertisements themselves were authorized by AETN. As such, your display and hosting of this unauthorized content violates our rights under relevant law and constitutes, among other things, trademark infringement, dilution and tarnishment of our brands and marks, misrepresentation, interference with contract, and unfair business practices.

A&E is not taking this apparent abuse of their brand lightly, nor lying down. Please note the date of the original post at MarkLives is yesterday, presumably prior to my article at 9pm last night.

It also seems clear I’m not the only person who can’t get a response from Ogilvy.

Normally we would stand firm against such editorial interference. However, in an email to AETS, Ogilvy Johannesburg and MarkLives.com, Graham Pfuhl, Marketing and Sales Director at Multichoice, stated that the campaign in question was in fact rejected by Multichoice, and confirmed “no History Channel ads can be published without the prior authorization of AETN.”

Would an ad agency really go ahead and produce a campaign without some sort of authorisation? The point remains unclear as no official correspondence was received from Ogilvy Johannesburg at the time of publication.

That’s certainly the question, isn’t it? Multichoice is a major Cable/Satellite television provider. But the big news comes at the end of the article. MarkLives.com has posted the copy provided to them along with the ads, by Ogilvy Johannesburg:

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This is a follow-up to my earlier story regarding the anti-American ads created by the Johannesburg office of Ogilvy & Mather. Sometime late last night, Ed Driscoll noted that the ads in question had been removed from the CLIO Awards page. I contacted CLIO again and here is their official statement on the removal of the ads:

“The CLIO Awards have removed the advertisements from the 2009 winners list and shortlist on the website until further investigation.”

Recall that their earlier comment was:

“Part of the CLIO Awards entry submission process for judging does include criteria that the work submitted must run/be published in order to be considered. We appreciate you bringing this to our attention and we will contact the agency and look into this matter.”

If Ogilvy did indeed submit ads to CLIO which did not actually run then it seems clear they are in violation of the rules. Still no comment from Ogilvy on the awards or regarding A&E denying any and all knowledge of the ads.

Click Here if you wish to contact Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide.

… or at least, by the ad agencies.

The History Channel is a generally well-respected brand in the United States. The shows routinely make “water-cooler” conversation at sites like Redstate. Indeed, the sister networks like The Military Channel are staples among conservative viewers, as anyone who spends any time around conservatives and veterans is well aware. So you can imagine my surprise reading an article earlier this week titled “Anti-American History Channel Ads You Won’t See In The US Or Online” at the Business Insider website. There were three images included which are, to say the least, inflammatory.

The campaign, titled “History is Written By The Winners” was represented by three images (History Channel logo has been removed):

Highly inflammatory, as well as disputable, and clearly anti-American. I immediately started looking into the story to find out why, or even if, the History Channel would actually run such vile ads, and why Ogilvy & Mather would create them. While I was researching, the story changed.

Less than a day after I read it, the article was updated with the following information:

Update: A rep for A&E Television, which owns HIstory Channel, says these are not authorized History Channel ads. This rep did not know if they were created by Ogilvy and Fran Luckin, as they were attributed on Adsoftheworld.com. We’ve updated the images with watermarks reflecting their inauthenticity.

Interesting. But a number of questions still remained. If A&E didn’t order the ads, who did? And why? Are they actually fakes?

Well … no. Not exactly.

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