After a small poll I’ve done, decided to ditch video and go back to written blogs, it’s “my thing” apparently.

 

Kol sana wento tayyebeen,

So we live to see another Ramadan, with apparently a new set of ads (or are they the same?)

 

SPOILER ALERT: This is not a very happy blog post, if you are a client, creative or executive in agency waiting for “mabrook, el e3lan kassar el dnia ya m3allem” or to forward the article to your peers at work.. you wont find that here, not this time at least..

If you are in for some constructive criticism, please read on.

 

Sitting in 4^th day of Ramadan, we haven’t seen a massive flow of ads yet.. just the big telco’s, a teaser from Pepsi and some random copies here and there.

Overall honestly, I feel the creative output of the Egyptian ad industry is becoming more frail year after year... We have generally been known to be the strongest creative hub in the region, but with such outputs, I unfortunately feel we’ll be taking a back seat very soon and lose leadership in one of the very few industries we’re still ahead at.

 

If everyone wants to play it safe and keep doing what has already worked on the premise that “if its not broken, why fix it” aw "إللي تغلب به, إلعب به" y2ba 3aleih el 3awad.

 

I’ll be mainly talking about Telecom ads in this post, cz its too long to include anything else.. Honestly speaking, they all feel the same to me.. take out one logo and put the other and u won’t feel a hint of a difference, they’re all saying the same thing without a fraction of brand character infused in the copy..

Overall the star-studded song concept feels too bland after EIGHT YEARS of running the same idea, since Etisalat started this wave with their “2alo Magnoon” copy in 2010.. To put it in perspective, 8 years ago we were still kings of African Football (Captain Hassan Shehata’s crew), Hosny Mubarak was still president and Instagram was still an idea in Kevin Systrom’s sketchbook (the pre-influencer era, fakreeno? haa7!!)

That’s nearly a decade ago, a decade where we see the same ad with a different cast and lyrics.. come on!

Every year since then we have seen the same concept replicated one way or the other, get the hottest celebrities on the scene that year, put them all in a 2-3 minute song and ur set for the season.. Setting aside any regard for endorsement value, ROI, brand role, message association or even distinction from competition.. Just something to win over the crowds w khalas..

But seriously, 8 years later, I think it’s a shame for our creatives not to be able to come up with something different, OR to put their foot down and tell their clients “Sorry, we will not do another celebrity song”.

Why Etisalat was so successful in 2010 was because the novelty factor was there, concept was fresh, you were eager to see what they have to say and the happiness that came with it..

bas el kofta di is becoming too repetitive and tasteless.

 

A very harsh introduction to a more lenient deep-dive, I hope. Don’t get me wrong, the ads are not bad (not all of them, at least), and I actually enjoy them, but I’m just addressing the fact that life has to go on beyond Oprette el 7elm el 3arabi that we see every year.

If people see it coming already, you have less chances of scoring with them.

 

1.     Orange – جاري يا جاري

 

 

The closest to my heart, the one with the strongest insight; that while your neighbors are literally the closest people to you, yet you feel very distant to them.. So take Ramadan as a good chance to reconnect and get close to them.. Mixing the most prominent neighbor types (the noisy, the nosy, the grumpy, the silo-ed and the trouble maker) along with a personal favorite of mine; Hani Shenouda’s score forShams El Zanaty’s OST makes the ad an instant fan favorite (gotta give credit to my good friend Hisham Kharma for seeing the gem in this track and remixing it twice; a techno remix in 1998 and a tribal chillout version in 2017).

Maybe this feels a bit off Mobinil/Orange’s Ramadan look and feel of the past couple of years, we’ve seen them do their version of songs with an Egyptian taste, real people, real cast; real stories be it with Dayman Ma3 ba3d in 2012, Fa3el Khier in 2015, Mel madfa3 lel madfa3 in2016 and so on.. but with changes in communication management heads between telco’s, its normal to see a different flavor to what was originally a consistent brand tone.

 

2.     Vodafone – نجوم رمضان السنة دي

 

 

The buildup there was quite nice, when they released pre-Ramadan copies for Saad Samir, Ahmed Hegazy and Ahmed Fathy, then followed up with the full song showing us how the story builds up.

The link is nice, and the connection between teaser and revealer copies is quite neat honestly. But I’m not sure how are football players Ramadan’s stars if the World Cup starts on the first day of Eid, so why would I see them as Ramadan stars? They should be training in Ramadan.. lol

A bit of a distant link for me, but I won’t be too anal about it.

 

But as far as I’m concerned, it’s the same ad of the last 3 years, with just new faces, refresh your memory with below

ڤودافون، قوتك فى عيلتك رمضان 2015 –

 ڤودافون – العيلة الكبيرة رمضان 2016 -

 

3.     Etisalat – احنا مش بنهزر

 

 

Wallahi shakloko bet-hazzaro bel e3lan da..

The only thing that I see consistent in it is el mobalgha.. overdone in every way.. Random Ramadan stars overdoing everything in an overdone copy.. although Sherine Reda of course soft-spot gamed.. still doesn’t justify, I don’t like the ad nevertheless..

Also I am really, REALLY bothered by the fact that Mohamed Ramadan is being over glorified in every appearance, be it a movie, series or ad.. The guy is talented, gotta give him that, but he’s not God, because apparently that’s the direction we’re heading; being last in line-up of the ad, King Tut’s casket, the music crescendo, the lyrics.. la2 mesh Michael Jackson tale3 fel e3lan ya3ni..

In case you haven’t noticed, he referred to himself as possessing “شعبية إلهية” in the last copy

 

Also, what the f*** is wrong with Samira Said’s voice.. I was listening to it in the car and I thought it was a Minion sound effect.. howa fi eh?

 

4.     WE – Mobile Internet

 

 

Remember when I said not all ads are bad, this is the bad one.

I honestly have expected much more of them on their launch year, but looking at what they’ve done with their logo design for starters, then the Montakhab Airplane design (let alone the Salah fiasco), this is not too surprising to me now..

Anyway, let’s not grill them much, with the competition they’re up against, the ad will probably die out very soon.. And that is when competition is really bad this year, let’s hope they learn the lesson by the time competition get back in shape.

 

Brand specifics aside, and along from the repetitive song concept which I’m sure I made very clear, there are some other factors that I see are

 

Copy duration

 

Kheir ya gama3a.. shwaya shwaya you’ll stop competing in Lynx and Effies and go head to head in short movie festivals..

Copy durations are becoming TOO long.. 2 and 3 and 5 minutes are NOT OK..

What kind of story are you trying to tell anyway.

 

I don’t believe this is the biggest bang for your buck, in a country where there’s

a.  No TV rating system (in case you didnt know, TV ratings in Egypt have been suspended since May 2017).. Agencies have been sadly relying on Twitter to know the good programs; Twitter, a platform of around 2 million users in a country of 100+ million.. So you really don’t know if your ad if being viewed or not, just qualitative assurances.. and dont fool yourselves with trending reports and view counts on Youtube, you know its all paid, so its a show of who has more digital budgets, nothing else.

b.  An economic crash after floatation

c.  A generation of viewers who are not on TV in the first place, paying money for programs, platforms and bypasses to watch content without the interruption of your commercial messages, and if they sadly sit through it, either they skip it, watch the first 3-5 seconds of it or they watch it with sound off.

 

Copies should be crisp, to the point yet entertaining to the audience you’re addressing..

Over the past year, I’ve been in sessions with Google, Facebook and the likes talking about 6 second ads... and we’re serving 120 second++??

 

Literally money down the drain.. I’m sure there’s a lot more you can do with these production, celebrity royalties and airing budgets… a LOT more.

 

Choice of celebrities

 

When we were studying celebrity endorsement in marketing and advertising books, by definition the celebrity should

 

a.    Be unique in some aspect of his persona (look, character, attitude…something).. Johnny Depp with Dior Sauvage masalan.. perfect fit.

b.    Have something in common with the brand

c.    Add to the brand

d.    Most importantly he should not have done any advertising work with competition.. preferably no advertising at all kaman, then people would remember him for your brand only.

 

Look at the George Clooney-Nespresso partnership.. George Clooney has been doing Nespresso ads since 2006, so for 12 years he’s been consistently hammering on the Nespresso offering, taking it from a brand no one knew to a household name with a machine in most of their target audience’s homes.

He even took it a step further, George Clooney also serves as a member of the Nespresso Sustainability Advisory Board, collaborating on ideas and solutions towards improving the lives and futures of coffee farmers (check full story here).
So he literally became part of the company, because their agendas are so in line that he can confidently represent the company as part of his belief system and encourage people to buy its products because he trusts it so much.

 

Taking it closer to home, when Adel Imam introduced Vodafone’s “Power To you” concept in a 1 month stint that ended with the Jan 25 revolution (which I think was their strongest corporate copy to date), that was f***ing powerful, the biggest Middle Eastern star with the biggest Telco in the region, the marriage made sense…

 

Neboss b2a 3al konafa bel renga that we have here.. just topline examples, I’m sure there will be more if we dig deeper.

 

- Donia Samir Ghanem and Hend Sabry both being featured on Etisalat’s “2alo Magnoon” copy, then again in this year’s Orange copy.. 

- Hossam Ghali did a couple for Vodafone himself as part of Al Ahly (since VF is lead sponsor), then appeared solo in Orange.

- Zafer Abdin in Orange this year.. already was in OrangeEagle just a couple of months ago and previously playing the exact same character in Vodafone Him/Her a couple of years ago (the suit, the watch, the boat, the girl.. the whole shebang really, just with a different brand)…

- El King b2a qessa tania.. Mohamed Mounir, didn’t feature in one, but TWO competitor ads, he did “2alo Magnoon” also (which was massive because he never did ads before that, novelty factor again).. Bas el zaher el le3ba 3agabeto, cz Vodafone did a yearlong campaign with him before he featured on Orange’s ad this Ramadan… eh ya gama3a.. el brand maloosh ahl yes2alo 3aleih?

 

And I honestly don’t think its any of the celebrity’s faults.. at the end of the day its business for them.. if brand X comes and offers me money for representing their brand while knowing that I’ve already worked for brands Y and Z, then why would I care about your brand, if you apparently don’t.

Also one last thing… not everyone can sing guys, Nelly Karim was a pain to listen to..

 

Lack of brand role

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

Morning friends,

Its been quite some time since I've wrote anything, depressing times honestly.. I'm sure everyone would agree.
Writing about advertising didn't seem like the right thing to do these days, until I saw this; the new Vodafone copy of Mohamed Mounir..



Cynics would say the idea might actually seem pretty simple, an idea that is repeated a million and one times already, showing the life journey of some singer.. so what?


So to answer that point of view would be; yes. The idea is fairly simple and might be repeated a million and one times; but the fact of the matter is that the choice of celebrity here is different from any other; Mohamed Mounir is a revolutionary icon from a lot of angles; his choice of words, fusion of different music genres, on-stage performances and bizarre attire does not act in conformity with what the society said it should back when he started in the mid 1970s.

Mounir is an exemplary artist who set his own standards, created his own halo and outperformed himself every single time; beating every adversary on the way... till he reached the stature of being called "The King" by his loyal fanbase and later on by the general public as well.

The choice of such a decorated character accompanied with a strong connection with a brand as solid as Vodafone would probably make this ad one of the most powerful this year..

I'll go through some of the elements that helped me assemble the above opinion and pass such a verdict on the ad given that I usually take such pieces of work with a pinch of salt and scrutinize it to the core

1. Choice of character and brand connection:

Well, I believe we already dwelled into the history of Mohamed Mounir and who he is, so no need to reiterate these facts.. The strength here doesn't only lie in Vodafone's endorsement of Mohamed Mounir (and the bags of money behind that) but of how the creative agency; JWT, connected Mounir's journey to the Vodafone brand.
The ad shows the life of a world-class singer and how he managed to crawl out of a small village in Aswan onto the spotlight of the Egyptian singers hall of fame.. A journey that took a lot of effort, perseverance, innovation and assertiveness on what one wants for their destiny.
Mounir is an example of a zero-to-hero character, someone who had nothing and now has everything, he's obviously someone a lot would aspire to (forget about the A/Bs who would still look at things with the tips of their noses; we're talking mass here). So all this married beautifully with the new line of "Don't let anything stop you", falls bull's-eye under the "Power to You" umbrella which Vodafone has been globally adapting since mid 2009...
I've surveyed a dozen of fellow marketing/advertising professionals re this; and some of them think that Mounir's choice weakens Vodafone's stance since Mounir has already been used by a rival telco operator a couple of years ago.. I respectfully disagree; Etisalat used Mounir as a part of a bigger crew that glorified the Etisalat brand (and cost them a shitload of money of course) on its 3rd birthday in a festival-like environment  (and worked beautifully with people), Vodafone however did the exact opposite; they glorified the endorsee and gave him the weight and airtime he deserves; with minimal presence of the brand that is only visible in the last 3 seconds of the ad. To me this this would make the idea sink better because I'm not advertising Vodafone here, I'm advertising the fact that there are people out there (such as Mounir) who went out there, followed their dreams and made something of themselves.. and at the end; hey, VF just wants to remind you that el qowa bein 2edeik and that u can take control of ur destiny, because we just saw an example of that.

So to counter that point once and for all; with the magnitude of this ad (copy duration and content), I even forgot Mounir ever did advertising for someone else before.

2. Casting

One of the core reasons why I think this ad will score very high on its communication KPIs is because its believable, its real..
As far as I'm concerned; the casting on this ad can easily win an Oscar for best casting/make up..  The 13 year old Saad Yassin is now a celebrity already as he resembles Mounir in his looks, walk, talk and singing style..
When you're watching the ad, you feel that is actual footage off Mounir's video library, not just some actors they got together to shoot an ad w shokran.

3. Cinematography & Music


The ad opens with Mohamed Mounir's close-up, so no further teaser of who we think the celebrity is (versus Adel Emam's ad where he appeared in the last 15 seconds in a 90 second copy).. Again this reiterates the fact the VF here is celebrating the Mounir phenomena, not the VF brand.

From my very humble film production knowledge and if I correctly remember my marketing textbooks; I believe cinematography of this ad is very good; as one of the guidelines of celebrity endorsements is to use a different camera lens than the one normally used for regular ads.. To give the viewer the feeling he's watching a movie rather than just another ad... They did that beautifully; coupled with some Instagram-like effects on the telescene, the ad really gives you the feeling it was shot in the 1970s.
Music is also excellent, builds up in the right time to the right scene to give you that epic ambience, that shiver down your spine that you can actually be the one that stage someday (whatever that stage of success means to you).

So to conclude, I was actually in an awe state upon seeing this... being a true believer that everyone has a potential-volcano willing to erupt with talent (targama 7arfeya shwaya, haha)..

With that said, I find no better line to close this than with Mounir's own words;
كل المفروض مرفوض... اثبت للعالم إنك موجود

Till we meet again,
3omdaz

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

Its so frustrating when someone works on something so hard and thinks its the best fruit of all their efforts, they think its the best thing that ever happened or will happen to the world.. Unfortunately not everyone would agree.. exactly what happened to the Vodafone Shokran campaign..

Apart from the actual copy that personally didn't register much with me, and the smaller cutdown of just Nelly and Samir Ghanem playing funny with eachother, which was also a disaster.. VF extended their Shokran campaign onto a radio program and a TV program for everyone to thank everyone else.. and we all live happily everafter..

But what VF didn't think of is that the internet population behaves completely differently than consumers of any other media; if someone doesn't like your ad on the internet they will say it right in ur face.. w elli y7assalni ykassarni... and this is what exactly happened when they decided to roll out that campaign on Twitter.. Last night, VF started a hashtag to encourage people to thank whoever they think is worth thanking; #vodafoneshokran.. It started off peacefully with people thanking their friends and family for being so supportive...etc.. Looks perfectly normal and on track of what they thought would deliver best on their campaign..
Then the tables turned COMPLETELY, with people using the hashtag to remind Vodafone and all the other telcom operators that cut off communication on Jan 28th; and "thanking" them for that... Here's a sample of some of the Tweets..



متشكرين .. انكوا اعلنتوا ان ولائكوا لمن يحكم .. خلوا الحكام ينفعوكوا #VodafoneShokran

Shokran for putting my life on the line on Jan28. Shokran for the panic you've created in every single house @VodafoneEgypt #VodafoneShokran

#vodafoneshokran شكرا، من كل شهيد، ماعرفناش نجيبلة إسعاف أو دكاترة يوم28 يناير، عشان مافيش تيليفونات


Adding more fuel to the fire, renown cartoonist and activist Carlos Lattuf actually drew about it...



Its very dangerous to think you can communicate normally at times of turbulence and major heat about your brand... We can bluntly say that Vodafone hasn't been a fan favorite this year.. So they should've thought a million times before telling people "HEEEEEEEEEEH E7na Geenaaaaaaaaa" :)))))
They should've been more careful about their communication message and how they'll approach it.. I'll quote a friend's status this morning that explains this beautfully: ‎#vodafoneshokran a typical example of " el may3rfsh yesref el gen may7daroosh"

Expected backlash quite honestly... Good luck to the PR team covering up for that!
fa ne2dar kda n2ool en this Ramadan.. Vodafone 2alet shokran!!!

Cheers
3omdaz