Clearly the biggest thing to happen to Canada since, well, ever, the Big 4 Battle of the Bands went down in Toronto last night. In case you couldn't be there, here's what we know:
1. Deloitte really loves Bruno Mars
2. PwC's band Lipstick Hornet performed Metric's "Combat Baby" without a keyboardist (what is this world coming to?!)
3. EY's Going Concerns "melted faces" and emerged victorious as two-time winners, opening up with "We Will Rock You." They looked like this after:
Although the event is clearly called Big 4 Battle of the Bands, we have absolutely no idea what KPMG did or if their band The Write-Offs even showed up at all, feel free to insert your related KPMG jokes here.
Just as Washington is finally passing a bill that will reduce unnecessary risk-taking by financial institutions, here comes this commercial from KPMG in the UK doing the opposite. KPMG parties like it was 2005 and sub-prime was a bad cut of steaks. The commercial celebrates risk-taking in a manner that only a BP executive could rationalize deepwater offshore drilling.
Almost everything is wrong with this commercial:
Its heroes, a man and a woman, presumably KPMG employees, are living in a risky world. Risk is all around them, from the moment they get up. But don’t worry. These two nitwits know how to engage in risk management. Mostly in jingle and parkour, in fact.
Wikipedia tells us that Parkour “is where participants jump, vault, and climb over obstacles in a fluid manner. Skills such as jumping and climbing, or the more specific parkour moves are employed. The object of parkour is to get from one place to another using only the human body and the objects in the environment. The obstacles can be anything in one’s environment but parkour is often seen practiced in urban areas because of the many suitable public structures available such as buildings and rails.”
The two heroes run, jump, flip over and take maniacal risks along the way to the office. Along the way the tag line, “Turn Risk Into Advantage”, is reinforced by embedded messages, in case we did not get the main theme”: “Know Risk, Know Reward”, “Do You Have The Risk Appetite For Success?” “Always Be Ready For The Unexpected.”
I actually like the “Turn Risk Into Advantage.” It is clever, memorable, and summarizes nicely what corporations are seeking in risk management advice. Yet it is completely overshadowed by the flip execution and the manner that suggests that KPMG employees, and by extension KPMG, take risks haphazardly.
Besides being out of context and lacking a narrative, the commercial ends on a cheesy note: upon arriving into the KPMG office and performing obligatory back flips, the couple race up the stairs, looks over the rail, look at each other, smile, and decide not to jump and take the elevator instead. This is a sensible move, perhaps the first one in this commercial.
Risk management is an essential practice, and perhaps as this advertising suggests, more in need than ever. Yet, it is not clear to me why the issue cannot be addressed heads on and intelligently. The irrelevant “packaging” simply detracts from the appeal of the practice.
Avi Dan is President & CEO of Avidan Strategies, a New York based consultancy specialized in advising professional service companies on marketing and business development. Mr. Dan was previously a board member with two leading advertising agencies and managed another.
With all the D talk out there re: anything Madoff, and most recently possible hotboxing and manscaping we’d hoped that maybe this whole story had taken a turn towards smut for good. Alas, we find ourselves back to a litigious story, this time it’s P. Dubs of the Canadian variety that are getting their asses sued: More, after the jump
The Canadian arm of PwC has been named in seven separate lawsuits claiming as much as $2bn in damages for investors who lost almost everything in the largest fraud in history…PwC Canada has been accused of negligence for failing to spot that Fairfield Sentry’s $7.2bn of assets simply did not exist. The firm signed off accounts in 2007 that stated 97.3pc of Fairfield Sentry’s assets were held in short-term US treasury bills – an asset class that should be safer than cash.
PwC, obviously quite aware that a sex scandal wrapped inside a financial scandal may confuse anyone that is both distracted by copulation and financially illiterate, issued this statement:
“PwC Canada provided auditing services to the Fairfield Sentry fund, but was not the auditor for Bernard Madoff Investments where the alleged fraud occurred. PwC Canada’s auditing of the fund’s financial statements fully complied with professional standards.”
Now, to some, this may seem unness for P. Dubs to explain that they didn’t audit Bernie’s funds since this never would have gotten past any reputable firm. However, since we now have a sex scandal mixed with the biggest financial scandal ever, involving thousands of duped investors, PwC decided to err on the side of caution. Madoff victims to sue accountants PwC over feeder fund audits [Telegraph]
