The reader’s corner 001: A Lebanese Bank’s campaign inspired*
The reader’s corner 001: A Lebanese Bank’s campaign inspired*
The reader’s corner official launch, featuring Reader00J (lots of Js on this website!).
00J sent us an email earlier this week, with the material below pointing a resemblance between 2 campaigns, The first is Banque Libano-Francaise (2006) and the second is Byblos Bank (2012). Check his own review and we’ll wrap up the post with ours!
Reader00J :
Talking about loss of Creativity in the country!
Here’s the latest Byblos Campaign, which is the result of long Pitch process that was won by FP7.
Doesn’t it remind you of a campaign that aired back in 2006 for another local bank?
Check the below and attached and you be the judge!
It is too bad, really; that the Bank’s communication re-launched ended being a copy of something that has been airing for years.
Banque Libano-Francaise in 2006
Byblos Bank in 2012
Admin I : Well, to be honest the resemblance in the concept and approach is quite relevant, however, having to advertise personal loans for banks in Lebanon is initially very redundant as a subject matter, therefore, receiving the boring brief from a client can be quite a heavy burden: it’s a personal loan, that can help growing a business, building a house and solving other problems, which makes the issue of originality here related to the client himself.
Visually the 2 campaigns are very similar but not copied, with the very “coincidental” use of the same professions for outdoors (fashion design, architecture.. ) and a close visual approach for the videos as well.. A real-tv approach documenting a process triggered by the loan that ultimately reaches success… one looks more credible while the other looks like a poor episode of a Lebanese series…
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Thanks to Reader 00J for his contribution, we will gladly publish any suggestion or contribution you send to brofessionalreview@gmail.com
Once again I get to start the debate
Though yes, sometimes Client briefs limit the Agency and consequently you get a lot of the same concepts for the same products, and definitely the Banking industry is no exception to this.
However, with the above critique posted by Admin I, I have to disagree.
When we spoke about the MyBLF App similarity in terms of execution to the different App ads, we agreed that though the execution might be the same because of the product, the concept has nothing to do with the rest of the ads out there.
In the case posted above, the CONCEPT and the EXECUTION are one in the same.
Even though Byblos is communicating a certain product, and BLF are more generic – everything else is the same.
Yes, a personal loan is hard to communicate, and every one ends up doing pretty much the same thing. But there are a lot of examples (like Bank Audi, or SG France) where though the Client brief is the same, the Agency manages to get out of that and actually communicate something creatively different (sent you the ads to your email since we cant post them here
).
In the case above, though it was a different brief, the concept and the execution are copied from BLF (the testimonials, the bars splitting the screen, seeing them in their work space, the industry – i.e. fashion…).
There are maybe a million ways to have communicated it, yet Byblos chose to copy.
With the above said, let the debate begin!
Great comment Grace.
It it true that i did not call it copying this time, but it is evident that I pointed out the over-the-top inspiration between the 2 approaches. The point of having a reader’s corner is to initiate such debates without being too present since after all, we are the ones called biased and too negative… This time it is you who acknowledged the copying, and we couldn’t agree more!
Great minds think alike
specially in lebanon ..