أصدقائي صديقاتي..

رمضان كريم..

Its been some time since we've met; its been quite........ an eventful year to say the least..

Over the past 8 months we've seen a lot of peaks and troughs; a mix of emotions; ups and downs, hopes and disappointments..

But with festive seasons such as this one, wel "ayyam el moftaraga" di; comes hope of a better day and wishes that things would become better.. If they're not getting better; at least we'll wish they'd stay as they once were..

So I decided to let time stop here; put all the politics aside and keep the below as pure joy of watching a good piece of advertising.

Since last year; I've been gathering some opinions and "critiques of the critique" regarding this blog; and some people told me that they thought I was being too lenient sometimes because I knew the advertiser or the creative team who worked the ad...

With that being said, I'll be more critical this year and will take whatever comes along with a pinch of salt.. Just for the sake of making this industry better (well; doing my part at least)..

So fellow advertisers, clients and friends... its just business, nothing personal here :)

Lets take a look on who kicked off so far and how they've done..

Although this ad scored well with a lot of people thusfar; however the purpose of this blog is to evaluate and critique genuine art of Egyptian creative minds... With that being said, I will not evaluate nor grade this one as it is a copy-paste job from a global copy that aired earlier this year with Coke celebrating 125 years of launch..

I really pity both the Coke marketing team as well as the creative agency for not having the chance to shine nor the space to rocket-launch; especially after such an impressive track-record over the past 3-4  years.

Personally speaking; I'm an original ideas junkie, copycats are a complete turn-off to me; so I looked away after the first 5 seconds; once I saw it was adapted.. but I'll leave the judgement up to you..

The Global copy launched earlier this year

The localized copy launched this Ramadan in Egypt

Since Coke does have a very impressive track-record and have proven time and time again that they're one of the most original advertisers out there in the market; I'll give them a bit of a break and showcase the below viral; a very inspirational video of the "Like" button... Although its been released about 2 months back; but it still shows that the above wasn't really the best fruit of their work and that they can do much much better!

Obviously there's still a lot left for this one.. We'll be seeing more of this, meet the 3 different characters of Donia Samir Ghanem and get to know them better.. Probably there will be a voting bit involved too.

Maybe SMS voting proceedings will go to charity; note "w ya reitha kanet leya, di l 7aga ensaneyya".

We'll see...

So far.. an average copy.. nothing impressive there either..

CSR copy... what can I say.... eshta!

Don't feel too intrigued to watch it again honestly.

I don't think this one will stop here... Probably a side-kick copy to THE corporate ad they'll probably release later on..

Grade: B-

CSR:

Again another CSR copy by Mobinil, but I'd have to say.. Its very well thought, doesnt come short of what to expect from Leo Burnett..

The hands that cook, the hands that build....etc.. I like that!

One thing worth pondering though; they promised jobs for 200,000 hands? tab mat2oolo jobs for 100,000 people w khalas? lol

Mobinil Business:

Although this one launched about 1 week before Ramadan, it can still be considered part of the same season. 

This one is just great; colorful; choreography very nicely done by the Alissar Caracalla dance group (Choreography instructor at Star Academy).. Makes you feel real happy watching it

Again I don't expect Mobinil to stop here... As the above were copies for CSR and Enterprise/Business, we did not see anything for Mobinil Corporate (ie: The BIG Mobinil ad of the year)..

The Leo Burnett team have quite a challenge on their hands since:

1. They need to make up for last year's disaster (Alf Leila w Leila copy with Edward and Aimee Samir Ghanem)

2. They need to cover up all the heat that is surrounding Sawiris and Mobinil for the past 3 months since the whole Twitter cartoons issue.

Anyways, thats just a quick round up of what's been released so far.. I'm sure after Iftar today there will be a lot of ad releases giving us plenty material we can start looking into... yummy :)

Have a great Ramadan everyone..

See u next time..

3omdaz