Hello friends,

Been a while since I've written here.. but realized that this gig has been running for over 10 years now.
10 years of writing this blog, wow.. Came a very long way since, personally and professionally.. 

Lot of great work done, even more flops sustained, long hours between meeting rooms and shooting sets, stage-time, festivals and award shows, talks & panel discussions, travelling around the region, glory of awards and slump of failure... But always, always great fun and wonderful friends made.

But it is not only I that have evolved, this industry too.. This beautiful industry that we love and hate.
Cant live with it, cant live without it.

I spent some time going over posts of previous years, seeing how the industry has evolved in the past decade... While skimming, I have realized one painful fact; we're actually moving backwards, not ahead.

This is not a typical blog post showcasing the different ads of Ramadan season.
This is a thorough look into the business and what went right, and most importantly, what went wrong and how we can rectify it...
Thus the title of today's article, inspired by the great chronicle of the late Dr Galal Amin.

Lets flash back 10 years ago, how the scene was set; to refresh the memories of those who've been around since, and to introduce it to those who joined us mid-decade.

Its 2011, just fresh out of Jan-25 revolution, Ekhwan hadn't taken over yet, and Bassem Youssef was still doing cardiac-surgery.
Egyptians had just realized the importance of social media, mainly Facebook and Twitter; after using them to orchestrate the logistics of Jan 25.
Instagram wasn't even a thing (well technically, it was 6 months old, but hadn't reached us yet). We were living the pre-influencer era (still in the BBM era before Whatsapp actually).
You could count private TV stations on one-hand and the pinnacle of digital advertising was banner advertising on Yallakora or Masrawy... and putting your ad on FB/YT was a nice luxury, after adequately airing it on TV.

Oh and one more thing, we were the Kings (and Queens) of TV advertising.

So what happened since, why do we now feel that advertising doesn't necessarily live-up to what we want it to be..

I've been reading quite some mixed reviews from an array of people from the different walks of life (inside the business and out).. Put together some thoughts in the below narrative. Also tried to dissect them into different categories to make them more relevant and easier to follow.

The Audience

This is really why we do what we do actually.. The people, the recipient, the "fans"..
The ones we feed our egos with their feedback, are actually the ones who also whip us when the product isn't at par with expectations..
Audiences now are more aware, more exposed and far more critical and far less impressed than they were before.

This is irrespective of the audience being customers or consumers to this very product or not, they still get to see the ad; since we're still applying mass-media targeting; had we been doing the right media targeting techniques of showing ads to only their respective target audiences, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

By nature of a more exposed generation of audience, they are internet bred, seeing everything from anywhere on VODs, Podcasts, Review communities, Vlogs...etc... 12 year olds now watch Korean documentaries for God's sake.
Thus, the kind of inspiration that artists/creatives relied on are now more vulnerable..

We all get inspired, well all get references and even "steal with pride" sometimes.. We are just now more bust-able. As its now easier than ever before to know where a similar idea, visual reference, piece of music or even a whole ad was taken from somewhere else.. we've seen many instances over the years of a certain brand being attacked for "stealing" an ad or a shot...etc

Also audiences are becoming more aware; they understand (to an extent) what marketing or advertising should convey, and thus become very frustrated when it doesn't deliver.. Not just aware of their marketing, they are more aware of their rights and beliefs; thus ads now are more susceptible to be offensive to one group or the other, an offense that would often fire back in the face of the product, agency or the company at a large.

In the Instagram and Tiktok age, when every average Jo or Jane think they are a celebrity in their own realm; people feel generally more entitled.. Entitled to everything; a better life, cooler friends, bigger fanbase and better advertising.. they feel deserve better, they call out brands.. How many times did you see someone on your friends list shout out "I need someone from XYZ company to call me immediately". A company, an institution, to call ME, because I have an opinion, and I want it heard.
That says a lot actually, we are indeed in time where consumer is king.. technically they've always been, but now they have a voice, and a loud one.

The combination of the above makes everyone a critic (yes, ana awwelhom) and the advertisers job to impress audience is now at an all time high.. a challenge that is often met, but more often not.

Brand relevance/role

How relevant is the idea to the brand, does the brand fit the script or the big idea? Does it have a role to play?

Most of the ads on the current scene are not brand-specific.. or not ownable by one brand over the other. You can easily remove Brand X to put Brand Y and you wouldn't feel the difference. (do it in ur head now, it'll easily fit).

That is in part due to current advertising either doing sporadic digital copies that "should go viral" or tactical copies for quick commercial wins.. little are the brands now that spend behind building brand equity to own a certain territory or platform; thus are totally replaceable.

Brand promise vs performance vs production value

مش كان أولى تاخدوا الفلوس دي تحسنوا بيها المنتج؟

You would very widely hear this comment amongst people from outside the industry. 

Advertising spend is usually a percentage of the company's revenue (how much exactly depends on brand maturity, category competitiveness, business objective, production value...etc)

Advertising in general is about exaggerating the product benefit, blowing the brand role out of proportion and amplifying its heroism; in whatever way (comedy, musical, drama...etc).
However when a brand is already underdelivering on its core promise/benefit and widely criticized for it, a generic branding campaign would easily fire-back; causing more heat on the brand and instigating people to think that it could've been possibly better to spend all the advertising money on enhancing the product/service.

Bad briefs and briefing process

An ad is only as good as the brief is.. That is where it all starts, a client says exactly what they are looking to achieve through the campaign, business objective, brand KPI and even revenue target.
But put the best agency on a bad brief, it'll still turn out mediocre.

The briefing process (especially for a big campaign) was once one of the most decorated and crucial meetings of the year.
We (at the agency) would get a massive, well thought, well crafted document and digest it for some days before meeting the client in a long Q&A session (with Directors, VPs and even MDs/CEOs in presence sometimes) to discuss and probe, to make sure we understand all the nitty-gritties, so that our suggested idea would be relevant and insightful. 

From what I'm seeing over the past years (and a good observation from a good friend of mine, a comms veteran in the region), with the increasing business pressures (post devaluation, COVID hit...etc), the senior members of marketing teams are under immense pressure to make ends meet and achieve business targets and market share, communication tasks are often delegated to more junior/younger members of the team who might not always have the experience to write a strong brief, that would generate a strong idea.

Add to that a declining work-ethic, and cutting-off zoom meetings; briefing sessions have unfortunately went from full-day workshops to an email to even sometimes a Whatsapp message. A sad but true fact that would make the agency understand the brief less, thus come back with an idea that is not fully reflective of the business or communication objective, then a worse ad.

When was the last time you've written or read a good brief?............??........ thank you :)

Copy duration

The notion of digital airing has went from a blessing to a curse.. Instead of trying to put your brand elevator pitch in 30-45 seconds, you can take your ample time in a short movie of 4-6 minutes... but then the question is, do you really need to?

Longer copies are indeed a great tool for storytelling, when you actually have a very long story to tell,. We've seen it and had our jaws dropped in some instances (Nike's Write the future for example, another classic that is 10 year old now)..
But the fact that now every other ad is more than 2-3 minutes long is becoming redundant, time-consuming and boring.. its like these long meetings that could have been a 2 liner email..
mat2ool 3ayez eh ya 3am el 7agg w tkhallasna.

While this is quite rewarding from an agency/production/media perspective (longer shooting days, bigger production budgets, higher markups and more expensive TV spot rates), but it actually harms both the brand and the consumer when the ad is overstretched, if you can say it in 30 seconds, do it. Hello? the whole world now is talking about 6 second ads for digital airing (YT pre-rolls and FB interstitials) and we're actually using it the other way.

Celebrity endorsement

I think everyone has spoken about it already, no point of stating the obvious.. the novelty factor of having celebrities in a star-studded copy is obsolete. The wow-effect is long gone, people expect it and are actually bored of it.. 

Let alone having celebrities that don't represent the brand, don't hold the brand value and have done ads for direct competition just 1-2 seasons ago.

I actually remember writing a whole section about it 3-4 years ago in an article here.. No need to rewrite it because the same comments still stand (actually, the whole article still stands coming to think about it, we've been proudly making the same mistakes for the past 4-5 years anyway).

Pulling a celebrity out of retirement/oblivion is a fairly risky strategy, yet the comeback should be strong enough to hold its own ground and not rely on people to live in nostalgia.
Nostalgia as it is, isn't a platform to ride on for years, its a short-lived feel-good euphoria, but if the idea doesn't hold itself, people will skip it for sure..
Let alone missing out on a new group of millennials who might not know the celebrity to start with; thus deeming this very expensive celebrity and commercial totally irrelevant.

Musicals

Jingles have been part of advertising for as far as we remember, but it has been really redundant and boring to see song after song after song... ad breaks are becoming a long, loud, non-harmonic medley.

Songs are great, and we love them.
But there are other selling techniques that would still deliver the message and drive brand recognition. 

There are some really nice jingles this year, but twice as much horrible ones..
I really wish we can downplay that card and start experimenting differently; herd following does fire back afterall... and again, not all celebrities can sing for God's sake

Copywriting humor

Creating ad concepts is a process, a very thorough one. 
Brand promise, role, consumer cycle, focus group, consumer insight, comms funnel, concept testing, copy testing.....etc.

A thorough process to help you understand the brand, the consumer, the fit and whether this idea would work or not. Yet with the increasing financial pressure, quick turnaround times, category competitiveness and putting awards before brand make people skip the process sometimes, well most of the time actually.

A lot of the advertising business now relies on someone in the creative team cracking a funny joke or line to be the "catchphrase" of ad, the hit of Ramadan; regardless of how this fits with the brand role or strategy.
I have numerously sat in campaign submission sessions with brilliant creatives to present an idea; just because it is funny and made a couple of people in the office laugh.. Not because it is smart, not because it helps build the brand, only because its funny.

Wittiness as obviously a sharp tool to use, but if utilized properly.. otherwise, it would turn the ad and brand to a joke, literally..
We're in the business of building brands, not telling jokes.. If it's cracking jokes you're good at, do standup comedy, its also good business.

Creatives-turned-Directors

A common trend that has been on the rise for some years now, senior creative directors in big agencies turning commercials directors or doing their own gig.
While this is an awesome addition to the creative process, and really brings in a lot of weight to the preparation discussions and a stronger final creative product; however it is indeed a double-edged sword.

When senior creatives leave the agency side without a strong number 2 warming the bench, younger creatives don't have much guidance or anyone to look up to and learn from. So they start improvising and shaping what is right (in their view) to the brand, which might not be necessarily correct.. Could work for a small tactical burst, but usually out of line of brand strategy and equity building.
Mirror that with laughing at their own jokes (copywriting point above) and responding to a weak brief by junior marketing staff (refer to a couple of points earlier); Et voila; you have just prepared your own creative nuclear bomb... everyone loses.

Funny enough, while Egypt is a 100+ million people, the market is quite tiny when it comes to the comms business; 4-5 big multinational networks, 2-3 strong local conglomorates and a couple of small fresh boutique startups (be it creative, digital or content agencies)... So grosso-modo, all what you see on TV, radio, billboards and Youtube is the work of some 150 people playing musical chairs in different agencies.
Creatives this senior in another market would easily be assuming board positions on regional/global agency seats.. But since senior opportunities are limited locally, agency veterans (who don't want to leave Egypt for their careers), have a couple of limited options; either stay in the agency and hit their heads to the ceiling every day, start their own agency or turn directors.

While this is a possible path for senior creatives, ones who have been around for years; it is becoming an immediate ambition for junior creatives who want to jump ship right away (rightfully so, for double or triple the money).
And it won't stop there, in a couple of years we'll see junior creatives who have not had good mentorship growing up, leaving the agency prematurely to start their directing career (with little to no experience as creative, or director for that matter), brace for impact my friends.

Conclusion

All respect and all love to everyone in their respective roles doing their job, spending long hours and sleepless nights in offices, production trucks, shooting locations and editing studios...etc.
However, this just an attempt, a wake-up call I hope, a checklist of what - I personally see - could possibly be done to rectify the course of what was once a top performing market, regionally and globally..
So that we wouldn't find ourselves here again next year, analyzing ads of a 5-minute song with celebrities, influencers and a totally replaceable brand that no one remembers. 

Hope you enjoyed reading this, I know I enjoyed writing it..
and sorry if its too long.

Till next time
3omda