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A debate over the validity of statistics in McCann-Erickson Southwest’s pro bono ads for Mothers Against Drunk Driving has prompted the agency and the client to revise some of the executions.
McCann executive vice president and general manager Tony Pace said the Dallas and Houston offices of the agency and Dallas-based MADD have changed some ads. The two parties will also investigate other claims that came under scrutiny from outside organizations and an online article in The Wall Street Journal last week.
Two drug and alcohol abuse experts stated in the article that MADD ads were using questionable statistics -such as “90 percent of all campus rapes involve alcohol.”
Pace conceded McCann erred in not qualifying one of its ads, but defended most of the MADD-provided data that was culled from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University in New York.
The agency and the client nonetheless agreed to change...
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