Hello people,

First of all, sorry if I was a bit of a disappointment this year... its been a crazy, CRAZY Ramadan... with no time to do anything!!
Anyway, since I don't have much of active brain cells left in me; lets dig into the critique.. no intros..

Mobinil:

Youssef Dawood:


Hassan El Asmar:


A typical Leo Burnett ad with its striking colors... I really like the Youssef Dawood copy, great of choice of character; his laugh is extremely remarkable, specially that he's bantering at the poor guy...

Hassan El Asmar's copy is also quite good, and would definitely sink well with the target audience (pre paid customers, SEC C wenta nazel)... Tough luck for Mobinil, the copy will not see light anymore out of respect for the deceased singer whom this ad was his last piece of art... RIP

Grade: B+

Pepsi:

Sporty:


Welfare:


Smarty:


As expected in review dated August 1st, it was a charity campaign indeed with voting involved...
There are some mixed emotions I'm sensing from this campaign... some people like it, some dont... Personally I like the Education copy a lot..
Nevertheless, no one can deny that Donia Samir Ghanem's star is shining as she proves year on year that she is one of the biggest talents to scout for out there..

Pepsi is at fault at one point there; regardless of whether you liked the ad or not... You'll end up hating it anyway because it airs A LOTTTT pretty much everywhere.. Pepsi is adapting the local proverb of "الزن علي الودان أمر من السحر"
One of the reasons why brands produce more than one copy per campaign is because people get bored after a certain level of exposure to the copy... Afterwhich their perception of the copy becomes negative.. Its called "Copy Wearout" theory..


You may have also noticed a series of unorthodox outdoor street signage for this campaign, as if it is a real elections campaign with candidates running against one another..
Too bad Coke jumped the gun last year with the same idea for Fantaloup's campaign last year below.. But I have to say that Pepsi have been more visible this year..


Grade: B+

Vodafone:






Shokran:


A non entertaining ad + a redundant jingle blended with a long copy duration that airs about 5000 times a day is a definite recipe of failure, for me at least..
The campaign's idea is smart indeed, thanking whoever you want, someone you're grateful for... great idea.. execution sucks though...
Dull copy, horrible jingle and a low production daily TV show doesn't really cut it..

Vodafone may have won the share of voice battle this Ramadan as they're the one's who are most visibile and probably the ones with the biggest pockets this year...
But I'm not sure how they scored in terms of ad likeablity and positive perception...
So I don't think we should consider this a victory for VF as much as its a failure to deliver by the other 2 telco operators... So its like you won a race, but you've been the only one running against crippled competitors!

Grade: C

Vodafone Network Coverage Campaign:

1. زيارة مفاجأة


2. معلومات مهمة



3. معلومات مهمة بردو



4. هس السلعوة


I believe this ad marks a transformation in VF's communication history.. VF has always been very serious, functional and to the point.. typically British.. Even when they were "fun", they were never playful..
Now we see a fun ad that is completely different from what we're used to from VF..
See how similar how this ad is to Mobinil's ad around 4-5 years back (The Mercedes, The Monkey, Yasmine Abdel Aziz....etc)

I believe this paradigm shift is because the new creative team on the Vodafone account have been brought up in the Leo Burnett Cairo school.. It is evident in the color tone, telescene, black comedy and opening sequence (note how similar the first couple of frames in the copies below are similar)


Anyway, this one helped maintained the balance after Shokran's flop (for me at least).. Shokran Vodafone ennoko l7e2to nafsoko!

Grade: A



Dayem:




We now come to the most controversial ad this year...
Some people absolutely LOVE it and actually wait for it to come along on TV, and others utterly despise it and zap away whenever it comes along..

This ad embodies everything that is evil in the advertising world... a stolen jingle, a fake French accent, irrelevant political connotations (Gaddafi quotes, WTF??), people dancing for utterly no reason.. how relevant is any of this to ANYTHING that has to do with the brand...
Major flop by creative agency... from a professional angle..
However, for some weird reason, the ad is funny and shareable.. so its something people like to see again and are actually sharing with eacother (so I really don't know whether this is a plus point for the ad or a minus point from the viewers)..

Ya3ni men kotr ma howa we7esh, yes3ab 3aleik, fa t7ebbo.. its like these little bulldogs.... they're so ugly, drooly and disgusting you actually pity them, then eventually like them!


Grade: A or F....Confused, but more prone to be an F!


That pretty much wraps up things for today, stay tuned tomorrow for Part 2 with more ads and more scrutiny.. Buahahahaha (evil laugh)..
Ciao
3omdaz