Ogilvy & Mather’s Manila & the Cebu Chamber of Commerce – Part 1

“… Fear cuts deeper than swords…”
Syrio Forel, The Game of Thrones

Due to an extremely disappointing work experience earlier this year, I am no longer accepting work as a director with the Manila office of Ogilvy & Mather’s.

I took a small job directing coverage for the Cebu Chamber of Commerce in March and subsequently went unpaid for 6 months. It was a nightmare.

I shall publish a full account of my recent work experience with O&M and the Cebu Chamber of Commerce over social and traditional media channels and my website @ www.waiseazimi.com

I believe it would be helpful my peers working in both production and advertising to understand what I went through so that they can avoid a similar situation in their own work lives.

I am beyond disappointed at how the Manila office for O&M handles payment issues for production suppliers, especially when a client starts to default on their agreed terms of payment.

I will not leave myself open to a terrible situation like this a second time.

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UPDATE: I posted a similar notice some weeks ago, that prompted the GAM I worked with to call me the next day and pay me out of pocket. The GAM did request that I take down the original post and out of common courtesy, I complied.

However, when I sought an explanation as to the reasons for the horrendous delay in payment, I was recently told that no explanation would be forthcoming.

The original post generated an enormous amount of responses and I received several private messages from colleagues of mine working in production that have been put in similar situations. The common thread among them all was that they agreed with me but were afraid of speaking out publicly in fear of reprisals from agencies.

I have no such fears. I am happy to work extremely hard on behalf of clients and advertising agencies that adhere to industry standards regarding timely payment and I am very happy to publicly discuss clients and agencies that choose to 1) delay pay for several months or 2) choose to simply not pay at all.

PS: The production company I worked with remains unpaid as of this post and the owner remains some hundreds of thousands of pesos in debt from our work together this March.