Figo controversy toll: Ford VP steps down

Three weeks after the controversial Ford Figo ads were uploaded on the internet, Sriram Padmanabhan, vice-president (marketing) at the company has stepped down. Padmanabhan, who had been with Ford for 10 years in his second stint with the company (the first was between 1998 and 2000), was promoted to the post of vice-president in January.

Two weeks earlier, Ford's ad agency, JWT, had sacked its chief creative officer, Bobby Pawar, following worldwide criticism over the manner in which celebrities such as Paris Hilton, the Kardashian sisters, former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and former Formula One driver Michael Schumacher were projected in the Figo campaign.

Though Ford and JWT said they hadn't authorised the release of the campaign, the controversy continued to rage, as the poster campaign had been entered for the Creative Abbies in this year's Goafest and was shortlisted in the first round. After Ford and JWT publicly admitted these ads weren't released, they were withdrawn.

This led to a debate on whether agencies and clients were colluding to win awards. Ads entered for the Creative Abbies at Goafest have to be backed by client letters stating these have been genuinely released. In Figo's case, a client recommendation had backed the entry, and this had later put the company in a spot.

Ad industry sources said it was only a matter of time before Ford took action to come clean on the issue. In a statement, the company said, "After internal reviews, both Ford and our agency partners have taken appropriate disciplinary actions. We take this very seriously. Together with our partners, we are reviewing our processes and increasing our education efforts to help ensure nothing like this happens again."