The Ramadan review

Now that the wholy month of Ramadan is among us, it is also a time for advertisers to make a move in the market. First, as usual, the brands jump on the bandwagon - Sleep Comfort and Spinney's are prime examples - well Sleep Comfort is STILL on sale if you wanted to know and for Spinney's I am not sure the image of the raw chicken is appetizing at ALL!....
And now of course for the social institutions who wait for this month to be able to get funds - much needed funds - and they all compete to grab the attention of the same target audience. The Mouhammad Khaled institution - which normally does things the grand way - went downscale this year with just a few haphazard ads "set free your will to do good" - with, blast, a pigeon being set free. Coming from an institution which did great ads in the past, there is no reason to go cheapo!
The Soundouk al Zakat, gets a hit and a miss - for the corporate campaign which headlines "do your zakat and make hearts happy" - it's a total failure. A below average ad which features your usual smiling faces. But it is the derivate campaign that gets top marks. First it uses statistics smartly - how many people belefit from their medicare, from their nutritional packages, etc... - and then (this is the genius bit) all faces of the participating people are covered so that everything is shown from chest down. First, this implies that "it could have been you" but also it protects the dignity of the people involved as it is much better to do good without revealing to whom good is being done.
Dar Al Aytam, who got their act together wonderfully well last year, have gone copy-based. Two examples are shown: "Al Zakat to those who deserve it" and then "Little achieves much". A great line they coined last year is missing from this year's campaign "if you want to give to orphans, go do to the oprhanage" (in Arabic "Iza biddak ta3ti el aytam rou7 3ala dar al aytam")... I really think that was genius as it mopolized the orphan/zakat association.
And then - the WINNER - this ad for Dar Al Ajaza has been running for three years I think. And why change it when it works so well?... The line, the visual, the layout, the colors, everything works to perfection. "I bask in her warmth" reads the line. Everytime I see this ad I cannot but like it even more.