Lee Dale

Leo Burnett and Asylum Films foolishness starts a shit show with Ronald McDonald House caught in the middle.

From Helen Walters:

Take a look at these two ads for the Ronald McDonald House Charities.

This one was made by Asylum Films, which worked with ad agency Leo Burnett “on an extremely tight turn around and small budget” to make the film:

Then take a look at this film, again made by Leo Burnett, but with a different director and production team:

This has, as you might expect, upset the folks at Asylum Films, whose Ben Falk writes in an open letter to Burnett, beginning: “At no point were we consulted on this or even told about it happening as a courtesy, and certainly not asked about our ability to create this new version. We feel hugely aggrieved by the situation.”

This is a tough situation, as it now appears to have spiralled out of control.

It was Leo’s concept (though it’s pretty well guaranteed they stole the little box dude from Anton Tang), and they hired Asylum Films to shoot a version of it.

I agree, Asylum should have been informed another was being shot, but it’s a moral, not legal issue.

And now, all the hoopla has caught Ronald McDonald House Charities in the middle (just take a look at the comments here). Given this, it’s fair to question Asylum publishing the open letter when it was sure to bollock up the charity’s campaign. You’d think they could have dealt with this privately. 

As Helen said, this is sad.

And now I’m wondering who the new production team is, if they knew about the original, and how they’re feeling about all of this. They’re surely caught in the middle too. And probably doing everything to distance themselves from the work now.