It is Time To Dance

The videos you are about to see have been around the Internet since the beginning of the year. However, I’ve just got the chance to see one of them via an email that my sister sent me.

And let me tell you; beside having fun watching it … I am impressed  🙂

Now, we all may agree that traveling is fun. But the worst part of it is definitely going to the airport, any airport! I mean who really loves the waiting lines, security checks, dragging or pushing bags all over the place, and the constant anxiety over delaying or canceling flights at any moment. Add to that the glooming sensation that usually occupies airports at seasons when everybody wants to go back home or fly out and start vacationing.

So can you quickly think of any thing that could ease such situation and make it fun. Think … any thing … I am not sure you came up with any thing near this. The Portuguese airliner named TAP Portugal turned the airport floor … into a dancing floor.

Before seeing the video, let discuss some marketing stuff:

• The Power of Surprise: For advertisers and social media marketers, nothing beats surprises in determining how successful a campaign might be. One of the videos had been seen by more than 300,000 people in only 3 days after being released through the company YouTube channel. Just to have a glimpse of how successful that campaign is, just think of what are the odds of you ever hearing about TAP Portugal!!
• The Happy Brand: I am not sure you will be seeing the staff of TAP Portugal dancing all over the place every time you travel with them, but you will always remember that these people made you genuinely smile. That video was shot during the christmas vacation. So the company was actually celebrating with its customers, and easing the whole airport experience on them.

I cannot help but thinking about what our local carrier, Saudi Airlines, might do to entertain its customers in such a way??!!

Enjoy …

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Al Bilad Bank; Stating the Obvious

http://www.bankalbilad.com.sa

Smart organizations understand their environments. They know which buttons to press, which issues to tackle, and even which games to play!
And when it comes to Saudi, there is nothing better than the subject of religion to be hovering around. And this is exactly what Al Bilad Bank is doing with its new campaign ‘the service and the Sharia’ah (the Islamic law) are a whole thing that cannot be separated.’ ~ I have to admit that I do not totally get the meaning of this tag line!

Choosing to position itself as an Islamic bank is OK from the concept point of view. However, they should not be over thrilled by betting on it! I believe the Saudi banking sector has matured, for some extent at least, and passed the phase of competing solely on being Islamic; all Saudi banks are now providing some sort of Islamic banking for that matter. Customers satisfaction, competitive financial offerings, technological implementation, and the whole service experience have all been part of the modern Saudi banking picture. For that, It feels like Al Bilad is just positioning itself based on something obvious, something given; and this is not a very good marketing technique anyway.

I believe, among others, that if you want to be successful you have to be somehow unique and distinguishable. I am not saying Al Bilad should reinvent the banking industry (although there is no harm in that; if they could!) but they should be innovative in their approach to brand the bank.

Despite all of that, the execution of the marketing campaign itself lacks creativity and originality. Both TV and printed ads are typical, state nothing new, boring, and carry no message. Additionally, and this could be more of a personal taste, the guy featured in them is creepy!! I mean his face is consuming more than half the space on the streets billboards and, boy oh boy, is there something really scary about his eyes! and did I mention that he looks like a robot!!
Finally, I have to state that I do not know anyone working in Al Bilad, I do not have an account over there, and this post has not been influenced by a third party.

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