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Energy BBDO CD Maintained Pro-Rio Site as Omnicom Shops Toiled for Chicago

By Jim Edwards

Updated on: October 5, 2009 / 10:16 PM EDT / MoneyWatch

Energy BBDO Chicago creative director Kevin Lynch maintained a satirical web site titled "Chicagoans for Rio" even though an Omnicom sister agency worked on Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics, according to Chicago Business. The site is currently down.

As you can imagine, the joke went down like a cup of cold sick with his boss, president Tonise Paul:

"All I have to say is this agency backs the Chicago bid, and as Kevin's employer, I would have vigorously argued against his creating the Web site."

Energy BBDO was a supporter of the bid; Omnicom's Downtown Partners was involved in the bid. Lynch told the Sun-Times why he launched the site:

... over a period of months, Lynch said he grew increasingly skeptical about the whole Chicago Olympic bid effort.

"I think Chicago would do a good job hosting the Olympics, but it was the process we went through in developing the city's bid I that lost confidence in," he said.

He added here:

"I walked from the idea where I thought this was the type of city where something like that would do really well, to questions -- it was just the process after that," Lynch said.

One good thing has come out of all this: Lynch has learned something about PR that he will never forget.