Hello friends,

As far as I can remember, Telecom operators have always been the hottest advertisers in the country, the ones with the biggest budgets to produce and air top notch ads that keep us entertained all month long.. Memorable examples of these would be: Mobinil's Ana batkallem w a2ool ba7ebbak in 1997, Vodafone's Bibo far2a3 Gigi and Etisalat's all Star roster in 2010,, to name a few of course..

Below is a compilation of all the Telecom ads that have been released so far, lets see if they were up to that reputation..


Vodafone:



The general trend in advertising is to take one to a world away from reality, a magical land of fantasy.. That would probably make you look up to the ad and aspire to what this brand will make you achieve.
This year, Vodafone took this rulebook and flushed it down the toilet, an extremely down to earth ad.. As in literally down to earth.. They took a step back away from koll el hags bta3 el e3lanat da and gave us the essence of what being a true Egyptian is about, el gad3ana, helping out in time of need and simply sharing..
They took real situations, real people with real sentiments and actions that you see Egyptians practicing everyday.. A group of people pushing a broke car down the road, hanging on to a bus to get one's bicycle going or just splitting a loaf of bread with a fellow coworker or friend..
The essence of the ad is quite noble actually, reiterating that Egyptians have always had sharing in their DNA way before social networks and mobile phones made it even easier.

They passed on the message alright, a bit too much I would say.. to the extent it harmed the overall ad quality in the eyes of many. The production of the ad is so poor (not sure if intentional), as if it was shot with a mobile camera (a cheap mobile kaman).. Pixelated/shaky shots as well as minimal recoloring in post production.. Making the overall ad look as if its an amateur compilation uploaded onto Youtube by MizoTiger17.

Question though, is this a way to get closer to the mass market? which comprises most of the operator's revenue.. As you can imagine the cashcow of the company are prepaid cards, la b2a roaming wala mobile internet w fatooret telefone b 2,000 LE wel kalam da... Its all about the mass and the guy who tops up his phone with 25 LE a week.. w el 3adad fel lamoon b2a.. Thus the mass revenue.

The weird thing is that the ad does not advertise a specific offering (a reduction in minute rates, or double benefits on prepaid cards).. It is a generic brand message directed to all Vodafone consumers.. Making a lot of people feel left out. Which I think is not very clever of the VF Team.
I'm not an elitist, at all actually.. But I just find it difficult hard to relate to such an ad; as it doesn't address me nor does it reflect my lifestyle.. Maybe it would score better with other SEC targets.

Having Mounir on the ad definitely adds to the copy, the lyrics however didn't help much.. Actually the overall copywriting of the ad didn't sink well with me.. Ma7shi w Fteer, w kattar sheriak together.. in one ad... no thanks!

I understand the intuition of getting down to grassroot level but a brand as big as Vodafone shouldn't have taken such a risk.. Would be very interested to look at the copy test results for this across different classes though, yemken ana elli ghaltan

Grade: C



Mobinil:







Funny ad, perhaps... to some people.. not to me though..
As always, Mobinil comes with a high production ad, with lots of fireworks and florescent colors.. Big "creative" idea, if you wanna call it creative.. that does not get the message across..
That was always Mobinil's way of communication, an extremely sticky ad that wouldn't tell you anything.. So we all remember the Yasmine AbdelAziz "7amra" Monkey ad or the "Ya Wad ya t2eel" copy a couple of years back.. but what was the ad about, what was the message they wanted to get across? Matla2eesh, zero, none.

One more thing, I'm not too much in favor of swearing in the ads, Etnayyeli, Allah ye7ra2ek.. I'm not sure how this helps with the humor or the message delivery of the ads.. The Mobinil target is quite broad and lots of kids watch this... not too responsible from such a respectable brand to teach kids such jargon.. mesh enni 3am el mo2addab el 7assas, but just saying

Although this comes as a disappointment for lots after Mobinil raised the bar tremendously with their Dayman Ma3 Ba3d song last year.. Bas overall fine, ok ad.. may2olsh la2... not the best i've seen come their way but not too bad either.. The Youssef Eid element probably serves them humorously well.. and that sexy black Shelby too (the car, ma7addesh yefham ghalat)..

Grade: B-



Etisalat:



Took me some time to find the Etisalat Ramadan copy, as they are still airing with not-so-fresh copies, The Austronaut shisa copy and the other one with the morphing play dough.
After some search, I found this.. A tactical copy for a specific offering on mobile data.. nothing too special.. They can air this at any given non-Ramadan day and I still wouldn't remember it.

Khosara..

Grade: D not for the copy, but for the overall effort,, or should I say for the lack of it


Telecom Egypt:



Since the NTRA announced issuing the license of the 4th telecom operator and the industry has been cautiously awaiting this dormant giant that has offices in every inch of the country and how their business will be affected upon their launch.
So the Telecom Egypt team have been beefing up a lot on their internal and external teams to prepare for the launch and they came up with......this!
A very long copy that doesnt say much.. Not does it have any insinuation of the new mobile service being kicked in, with the exception of one guy talking in his mobile phone in sec "35..

I'm quite disappointed to be honest, if this is the launch of the mobile division of Telecom Egypt..
If the intention here is a rebranding and change of face of the 100 year old brand, then maybe I can start being a bit more lenient.

Nevertheless I still don't like the ad, very tes3eenati.. the ad industry has come a very long way since then..
I won't grade them now as "hopefully" we didn't see everything of this campaign yet.

Grade: N/A

So overall, I can confidently say that this year none of the Telecom operators gave us anything appealing enough for entertainment or starting a discussion, let alone get a message across.. Aho e3lan wel salam.. which is not what we expect from such a giant category with big players..

w 3la ra2y 7adret El Nazer Abdel Mo3ty f Madraset El Moshaghebeen... lam yanga7 a7ad!

Hope I reflect some of your sentiments there.. I'm quite sad at the level of telecom ads this year..
As always, if you have any questions or want to discuss something further, hashtag #3omdazblog or mention @3omdaz and we can have a chat :)

Till I see you next time,
Adios Amigos,
3omdaz