JWT Damages Sacred Inca Sun Clock While Shooting Beer Ad at Machu Picchu

Advertising rule No. 1: When filming, try to avoid damaging sacred Inca sun clocks.



Machu Picchu, the fabled lost city of the Incas in Peru, was unscathed by the plundering of the Spanish in the 1500s, but the same cannot be said of its experience with J. Walter Thompson. The agency's Lima office, shooting an ad there on Sept. 10 for Cus queña beer, dropped a 1,000-pound crane on the treasured Intihuatana sun clock, chipping off a piece about the size of a ballpoint pen.