Billboard giant under fire for pulling posters mocking advertising agencies

Billboard operator Global has been criticised after pulling a campaign that mocked major advertising agencies.Senior executives at Global, which operates more than 250,000 billboards next to roads and on the London Underground, intervened to pull a paid campaign that poked fun at ad giants such as WPP after it had already launched.The media company told WeAreSPQR, the PR firm behind the campaign, that the ads were “too personal” and had a “negative association” for agency partners that “represent a lot of business to Global”.That was despite the campaign being approved by Global’s own copy referral process, with no reference to the ads being offensive, inaccurate or otherwise in breach of the advertising code.The move triggered accusations of a conflict of interest for Global, which relies on the large ad groups for a major source of its revenue.Mike Coppen-Gardner, the founder of WeAreSPQR, said: “Global basically pulled this because it didn’t want to upset its customer base. It’s a really strange dynamic.“Whatever their intent, they used a public advertising medium to protect a set of commercial relationships, and that’s just not right. What else are they doing or could they do to pull campaigns if it upsets other people or their customer base?”The ad agency boss said the decision highlighted the murky relationship between media owners and large advertisers, and warned it could affect what was being said in public spaces.He added: “If you’re looking at consumer choice and competition, at what point is that competition stifled by the closed-door conversations between agency groups and their media partners?”The campaign, which launched in April, featured six different billboard ads that took aim at the largest advertising groups.They featured taglines such as: “Maybe they’re called agency holding companies because their clients have to wait so long.” Another read: “The big agency groups are firing. But not on all cylinders.”While the ads did not directly refer to any of the major advertising holding companies, they all appeared on billboards in Southwark, close to WPP’s London headquarters.The ads were pulled with immediate effect on May 5, three days before the scheduled end of the campaign.The dispute comes at a torrid time for traditional advertising agencies, which are scrambling to adapt to the impact of AI on their business models.WPP has said it will cut £500m in costs over the next two years by selling off some businesses and restructuring its sprawling holding group.The company let go of 10,000 jobs last year and recently lost its crown as the world’s largest advertising company by revenue to Publicis, its French rival.Global is one of the UK’s largest media owners, with its network of screens and billboards reaching 95pc of the population.It signed a new eight-year contract last year with Transport for London to manage advertising across Tubes, trains and trams.The media giant also owns a host of radio stations including Capital, Heart, Classic FM and LBC, and produces podcasts such as The News Agents.Global declined to comment.