Mission Implausible: Ad Agency Thinks It Can End Arab-Israeli Conflict

(MoneyWatch)  Publicis (PUB)'s Saatchi & Saatchi unit has always had a healthy corporate ego but its latest stunt -- a competition for new ideas to end the Israel-Palestinian conflict -- rises to the level of megalomania. (Crowd-sourcing a Middle East peace deal! Of course! Why didn't Bibi Netanyahu think of that?)

Just to be clear: Saatchi is an advertising agency. It has a great business (Toyota and Procter & Gamble are its cornerstone clients). But it is not an international relations think-tank. Yet the shop believes that its expertise in selling boxes of Tide qualifies it to resolve a conflict that can trace its roots to the Old Testament.

Naivety doesn't begin to describe Saatchi's approach: Here's BBS Saatchi & Saatchi Israel's pitch brief:

... the conflict between Israel and Palestine ?€" described by the BBC as "enduring and explosive".

That makes it sound like a bodice-ripping romance novel. (And why does an agency based in Israel need to crib a boilerplate description from the BBC? Can't they just look out the window or read the local paper?) Here's my favorite part:

Contributions from all parts of the world, especially New York, are called for.

Why New York? It doesn't say! There's also a Facebook page, a video channel and a Flash-heavy promo web site.

What's really going on here is that two strains within Saatchi's corporate culture -- its belief in its own importance and its love of competitions -- have collided with hubristic results. Saatchi, remember, is addicted to contests. It staged a Twitter contest for a copywriting job in Los Angeles. It used to award a prize for innovation every year (although the prize's web site says, rather glumly, that "The future of the Award is being reviewed, and there are no plans for a further competition in its current format.")
And the agency likes to attach itself to sports franchises.

I won't begrudge CEO Kevin Roberts the Nobel Peace Prize if, by some wild chance, Saatchi does come up with a way to end the war. But let's face it, it's not going to happen. Especially when the competition's Facebook Wall contains such gems as this:

Luca Hateparty: Let the leaders smoke weed togheter.

Related:

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Hat tip to AgencySpy.
Image of Gaza terrorists by Flickr user Amir Farshad Ebrahimi, CC.