Omnicom says WPP broke the rules on Media Lions claims – and WPP doesn’t seem to know what it won

Entry rules for the Cannes Lions Media awards state that the media agency involved has to be mentioned in the original entry – with a bit of leeway for the odd omission.

WPP’s GroupM, the umbrella company for al the WPP media agencies, seems to applying an elastic definition to the latter – first claiming 15 media wins (listed on the Cannes website as they should be) but then revising this up to 45 (which puts it well ahead of rival Omnicom Media Group’s listed 19).

GroupM also asserted in press releases first that its Mindshare was the top performing media agency at the festival with 16 winners, then changed its mind and said that MEC was top with 21. Omnicom is crying foul.

Well WPP/GroupM either won these things or it didn’t and it should be pretty straightforward for the Cannes Lions organisers to tell us if it did or not. It has to be said that the Cannes Lions website is a thing of wonder; telling us that awards are to be announced tonight or the next day when the whole world knows who the winners are.

Last year Omnicom claimed WPP agencies had block voted against its entires in the creative awards. WPP claimed the same of Omnicom in the media awards.

Boys, boys…