Saturday, October 12, 2013

SGBL plays it condom-safe for its 60th anniversary.


SGBL is celebrating its 60th anniversary with this new TVC. It is well done, well shot, with exclusive music by Khaled Mouzannar. And it is boring as all hell!
Oh and it stars the incredibly irritating Marcel Ghanem (one of our most prominent media figures whose laugh is often mocked in caricature shows - this is not slander - watch any comedy show and see how his laugh is imitated left and right). In addition, when flying abroad to meet one of our luminary MPs, and when the MP said his salary was barely sufficient for him... Mr. Ghanem did not even challenge that propagandist narrative by asking him how he was sustaining himself in a luxury hotel for months at a time!
Still, Mr. Ghanem is supposed to anchor a very interchangeable ad which could have fit any bank-insurance company-official body celebrating whatever milestone.
Everything is there, and by God, I assure you, we have seen them before. All of them - the ballerina in a dilapidated setting, the workers rushing to help one another to mend a house torn by the war, a slice of life about a family arguing (which is often used as a metaphor for the civil war years), the shots of Beirut with dreamy colors, and - pardon me Mr. Mouzannar - the conventional prepackaged music which is supposed to indicate romanticism-dipped-in-resilience-with-a-dash-of-hardship. Yes, all been done before.
On the plus side, the 60th anniversary logo is indeed very nice - with the infinity symbol tucked in nicely there. Pity they can only use it in 20 years (it doesn't work for 70). And in case you missed the irritating smile on the TVC, here it is:

7 comments:

Habib Battah said...

I'm very curious about that final scene with the workers building the home. Do Lebanese banks-- and SGBL in particular- typically engage in home-building?

Tarek Chemaly said...

Lah, lah ya Habib! See, this type of scene (not just used by SGBL but ubiquitous in post-war Beirut from Tatra Milk to "Ana Loubnan" campaign to Solidere to wahtever) is how Lebanese are always hopeful, always rebuild what was destroyed, and always help one another. Yes, cliche, I know, but then this is how Lebanese advertisers use it.

Habib Battah said...

Hopeful, as in, it's just a hope that no one carries through on?

Tarek Chemaly said...

Well, we do carry through on it, you and I live here - and so it must be hope for something to change! Otherwise everyone would have fled the land.

Habib Battah said...

What was that other bank ad, that had the little girl in all the old black and white film reels, like sitting next to Bechara Khoury and what not. Along the lines of 'we have always been here, by your side'

Tarek Chemaly said...

90th anniversary of Fransabank...

Habib Battah said...

thanks