Agency Spy

For a bit now, Adverganza has been taking a look at agency Wikipedia pages just to see what’s being said. Since then, Virgil Griffith, a Cal Tech graduate student, created WikiScanner. The site cross-references an edited entry on Wikipedia with the owner of the computer network where the change originated. So… all you kids editing away about your agency - better get a bit more savvy.

We decided to check up on three agencies to see if they’ve been naughty or nice…

Wieden + Kennedy

The smarty-farty kids over at W+K have been up to no good. They edited pages including musician Paul Hinojos , whaling in the Faroe Islands and numerous pages about yup - themselves! That’s a Wikipedia no-no. Their infractions aren’t too severe though. Under the famous agency tab on the Wikipedia advertising page, someone associated with their I.P. address added Wieden+Kennedy and removed agencies they thought didn’t belong like Olson Advertising. They also have updated their client list, added imagery, and links to their page.

Saatchi & Saatchi

The I.P. address associated with the company (both nationally and internationally) include pages on chess player Alexander Beliavsky, hip-hop artist Nas, rich kid prep school Birch Whathen Lenox in New York and yes, their own page. That’s a no-no folks, eventhough the addition is not blatantly self-promoting, but more explanatory. In November 2006, some random employee added this text: “Saatchi & Saatchi entered a new phase in 1997 when it officially dropped “advertising” from the name. Under the direction of its new CEO, Kevin Roberts, the agency sought to be known as an “ideas company”. It was this philosophy that gave rise to the “Lovemarks” philosophy - a theory that is premised on the concept that ‘brands are dead’. “Lovemarks” has been the driving force for many of Saatchi’s global clients, which include over 50 of Brandweek’s Top 100 Brands in Advertising. Across its 189 offices, Saatchi & Saatchi works with the likes of VISA, Sony, Lexus, Guinness, Hewlett-Packard and others to promote the “Lovemarks” philosophy.”

BBDO

The ladies and gents at BBDO have edited pieces on foot worship, vintage stars like Hillary Brooke, and third tier celebs such as Samantha Ronson. They’ve corrected a ton of information on their page, which was posted by other users from trivia bits to history notes and they’ve been updating their client list. Pretty boring stuff other than that weird foot worshiping thing.

We’ll do some more tomorrow. It’s fun to see what agency employees are fiddling around with on Wikipedia.