Ogilvy Delivered Hopenhagen Campaign After 8 Other Agencies Drop Out

(MoneyWatch)  If President Obama gets any meaningful deal to cut carbon omissions at the Copenhagen global warming summit, he should thank in part Ogilvy & Mather, the venerable ad agency owned by WPP (WPPGY).

And then he should pointedly not thank Draftfcb, Euro RSCG, R/GA, Dentsu and four other agencies who dropped out of what was supposed to be a joint effort by the International Advertising Association around the "Hopenhagen" campaign, according to ClickZ. The campaign seeks to deliver a petition demanding countries agree to "binding targets" to cut greenhouse emissions.

The ClickZ story of what happened next is an eye-opener. It says:

A splashy launch at the Cannes Lions festival in June proclaimed that more than a dozen agencies would support the "open source" concept. But the campaign nearly collapsed before it could join the chorus trumpeting the talks.

There was reason for optimism:

All the major agency conglomerates -- Havas, Publicis, WPP, Dentsu, Omnicom, and Publicis -- had committed at least one creative or media agency to work on the campaign, which existed under the central management of the International Advertising Association.

But it seems that only Ogilvy had the cojones to live up to its promises:

... By mid-fall however, with the recession deepening and the ad industry in free fall, the burden had fallen largely to Ogilvy and the campaign was in danger of falling flat.

... much donated media was not forthcoming on the scale hoped, and many creative agency partners were no longer attached. Draftfcb, Euro RSCG, Dentsu and five other agencies dropped out, a total of eight of 13 mentioned in the June campaign announcement. Some, like R/GA, made contributions at an early stage but then stopped working the campaign. (Among those still listed as Hopenhagen partners are MDC Partners' Colle+McVoy, IPG's McCann Worldgroup, and Omnicom's Ketchum.)

(Havas had an excuse. It created the conflicting "TckTckTck" campaign headlined by former Secretary General Kofi Anan.)

Clients take note: Other agencies made promises. Ogilvy delivered.