Havas CEO Yannick Bolloré won the CEO award for “contaminated executive operations” for overseeing Havas Media’s winning pitch for the Shell media account and ongoing pursuit of additional business within the oil giant. McCann won the DEI award for “definitely exploiting individuals” for an International Women’s Day campaign that the agency created on behalf of Saudi Aramco.
“This was a very, very crowded category, but we couldn’t resist giving it to the folks at the Saudi government’s personal piggy bank, Saudi Aramco, for having the audacity to celebrate how women drive innovation in a nation where it’s still culturally unacceptable for women to drive,” Conlan said.
In addition to the lifetime achievement award named after Edelman, the company also won in the Biggest COP-Out category for the work it did last year for Adnoc, the state-sponsored oil company of the United Arab Emirates. Edelman worked with both Adnoc and COP28, the 2023 United Nations climate summit hosted in the UAE, and reports showed that the two entities (both helmed by Sultan Al Jaber, head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company) were often indistinguishable.
“We strongly disagree with this characterization of our work,” an Edelman spokesperson told ADWEEK in response to the awards. “We are committed to helping our clients accelerate their climate journeys, including those in the energy sector. At this critical time, negative provocations about the important work that businesses and organizations that we work with are doing to tackle the climate crisis are unconstructive.”
Havas, McCann and Ogilvy did not immediately respond to ADWEEK’s requests for comment. We’ll update this story with more agency responses if we receive them.
Award presenters included:
- Kristy Drutman, CEO of the Green Jobs Board and Brown Girl Green
- Wawa Gatheru, founder of Black Girl Environmentalist
- Gustav Martner, head of creative at Greenpeace Nordic
- Rob Mayhew, comedian, writer and head of new business at Movers+Shakers
- Bill McKibben, author and environmentalist
- KG Mokgadi, actor, comedian and host of Politically Aweh
- Jacob Simon, creator of @JacobSimonSays
- Solitaire Townsend, chief solutionist at sustainability-focused agency Futerra
- Tori Tsui, activist, speaker and author of It’s Not Just You
- Qiyun Woo, science communicator at @TheWeirdAndWild
