A Few Words From Capitec Bank
Charl Nel - Capitec Bank
By now im sure most of you have seen the final execution of the winning Idea that Capitec Bank bought off the back of their 'Great Brands of Tomorrow" brief (if you havent seen it yet click here) We were amazed at the speed that the Idea went from purchase to studio and finally to running for the first time in regional and national newspapers in SA.
Comments
Tony, I hear what you say.
The answer lies in exactly what you say - this idea does answer the brief and it brought an extra element to the communication - it was clear that the creatives that worked on this went a step further than the rest and I believe that this is the reason why this idea was favored. It answered the brief and more. It was in this "and more" where the tipping point lies.
Until next time.
For what it's worth, I don't have a problem with the winners (congratulations to them, btw!) using their local knowledge to make a valid link between the name of a Capitec account and the bank's recognition at a global level.
And it's fair enough that the bank should want to take the opportunity to highlight one of their products.
But... in making changes to the winning idea, I'm afraid they've completely ruined it. They've evidently thought 'hey, it can't hurt to put a bit more product information in there' - but it's made the headline so clumsy and confusing that I suspect most readers won't get as far as the copy where the key points of the communication are.
Charl says: 'We panel-beated the wining (sic) Idea on this side and agreeably (sic) through this process an Idea always looses (sic) some of its punch.' If it reduces the impact of an idea, you simply shouldn't do it.
It isn't the case, regrettably, that 'the Idea was strong enough to survive the custom making process to still get the message across in a powerful way'. And that's not a dig at the idea, by the way; no idea could stand that degree of 'custom making'.
PS Daniel - I note that someone asked in a comment on another blog post to see some of the other work in the Top 30. You're more than welcome to show mine.
Kevin.
Unfortunately I would not be able to answer to all posts but I have the time this morning to have a look at the comments.
You need to remember we run a business. A business that is growing phenomenally because of the business decisions that's made on a continuous basis.
I cannot fault the business decision that was made in this instance.
There will be a next time. The process was very insightful and we will use Idea Bounty again. I trust you will take part again. Thank you for your contribution.
Hi Kevin, Tony
Thanks for chipping in with your comments - very cool to see conversations like this start!
I think its very interesting how the winning idea answers the brief and take it that one step further by adding in something that was not explicitly asked for in the brief itself. I think it was this act of not only trying to solve the problem given and putting forward a solution that answers the brief as well as throwing in a little extra that often swings the vote.
It is amazing how many submissions that come through for all of the briefs we have hosted so far that attempt to take the Idea this 'one step further' - for example for the Peperami brief which was looking for a TV and Print ad the amount of submissions that included Online executions was insane.
I think the key take out here for creatives is that Ideas that take what the brief is looking for forward that little bit more generally do better.
Kevin - thanks for the permission to post your Ideas. One of the things we are planning to do this year is give you all the ability to publish your Ideas once a brief is closed. Keep your eyes open!
Echoing Charl's words here - we hope to have another brief from Capitec Bank for you all to tackle at some point and personally im looking forward to see how it goes now everyone is more aquatinted with the brand.
Thanks again for your contributions both Ideas and comments!
Daniel
Personally I was disappointed by the choice. It's not very creative is it? But - as always - the client has the final word :)
Kudos to the winners!
Hi Nuno,
Cant disagree with your personal choice! I would agree that the final execution is not the most eye catching ad out there. Having said that I do think the Idea and concept behind it is very strong, clever and says what it needs to. More than that I think it has been amazing to see Capitec Bank take this route and go from brief to picking a winner out of more than 600 submissions and then to print in less than two weeks - awesome if you ask me.
Good luck for the next brief and thanks for the comments!
Cheers,
Daniel
This comment came from my art director Richard Bates, ex- seniot AD at Ogilvy and AAA advertsing lecturer.
Richard has thirty years experience and has worked at most of SA's best ad agencies.
Richard has also won multiple international and local awards and has asked me to pass on his strongest feelings regarding the Gold-awarded Capitec ad.
I quote:
Dear Daniel,
It is nor so much about the art direction but the fact that the ad was
virtually unnoticeable:
Were it not for the fact that I was repeatedly searching through the papers to find the Capitec-branded advert, I would not have even noticed that your chosen winner was in fact 'an advert'.
The jumbled,if not torturous headline copy and sloppy type resembled the worst and typically bad 'pub-set' press, i.e. editorial styling with bad typography, flaws,etc
When it comes to the merits of good - even passable advertising craftmanship,the Capitec Bank communication fell well and truly short - in every respect!
It's clear to me that the people who created, then those who revised and assembled this dubious 'communication' don't understand the fine art of advertising at all.
One of the first rules of advertising is to be noticed.
'Unseen is unsold!'
(As already stated, it was difficult to spot the so-called 'advert' in the first place!)
Then, the next rule is to MAKE IT CLEAR WHAT THE PROMISE IS. And thirdly, as ad guru David Ogilvy once remarked: 'Don't treat the consumer like an idiot..she is you mother"....
Regardless of how much money Capitec spent on running this advert in the press recently , it was a complete waste of money ...if it went unnoticed. Everything else is academic.
I'm sorry Capitec, your advertising went unnoticed by everyone I have discussed it with.
I'm not sure what you spent on the ad - media costing many thousands of rands presumably.
In my opinion this isn't a 'business
descision' as you indicated ...It simply wasted your money.
The ad is like a ship that has passed in the night, and few, if any noticed, let alone remembered the advert!
Yours,
Richard Bates
Creative Strategist & Senior Art Director
(with 30 years experience)
Thank you for all your comments and insights. They are all appreciated and
taken note of.
The bank is built on non-traditional thinking. If we were to follow
traditional thinking in the way we are building the bank or the brand or any
other section of our business we will just become another traditional bank.
This is not what we want – for obvious reasons if you only look at what the
banking industry offered clients for so many years.
I realise that it is not the norm to have such an open process about a
brief, how we decide on the winning choice and the execution of that brief.
But this is the beauty of the process and the insights that come along with
taking this non-traditional approach. It was of great value to us.
I also realise that this non-traditional Idea Bounty approach threaten the
way things have always been done in the industry and that it will be met
with some resistance. This openness may even be abused to force brands to use the
traditional approach. As mentioned, traditional thinking does not form part
of our DNA and that is where our success in the market lies.
I trust that this interesting debate has stimulated everyone in the Idea
Bounty community to even bring deeper insights to the table when we do our
next Idea Bounty brief and use the crowd-sourcing method to get great
insights from across the globe.
Until next time.
Charl
Charl, this comment: "I also realise that this non-traditional Idea Bounty approach threaten the
way things have always been done in the industry and that it will be met
with some resistance" is just silly.
I'm not in the traditional industry as such, yet I submit on Idea Bountry and I will happily admit defeat when the winning idea is a "damn, that guy's clever, I wish I'd thought of that" goal-scorer.... which it just isn't.
I'm not threatened, I'm CONFUSED - is it art?
I believe skill recognises skill - and that the other entrants would give kudos where kudos was due. If they were due.
Someone has to tell you in plain english that the final execution is just plain
K
A
K
right down to the lack of capitalised first letter - I thought it was the second page of a DPS?!?
... just want to clarify (clearly have too much time on my hands today) that this IS NOT a diss of Amud - his IDEA was MILES AHEAD of the execution.
He had the foresite and courage to go against basic brief and focus on JUST ONE point, where I was running myself ragged to include EVERYTHING client asked for ... and ended up not submiting ANYTHING because I was so overwhelmed.
So basically have decided that BRIEF was half-baked, not Amud's idea.
It looks like a lift off the Pepsi Logo. Sorry guys. You gotta be more original.
@Heidi,
Just wondering - are you talking about the Capitec Bank logo? The logo was never crowdsourced, the brief from Capitec Bank was looking for a new print campaign not a new logo.
Hope this clears things up a bit!
I agree with HB. Your logo looks like it was lifted from Pepsi. If Pepsi doesn't sue you, it will be a wonder.
Tony Starks on 30/03/2010
I appreciate Charl explaining why the winning idea was chosen - but unfortunately that wasn't the brief (talking about the Global One product) he presented to Idea Bounty to put through to the rest of us.
With all respect to the Gold winners,the brief was to explain what it meant for Capitec to be named in the Credit Suisse report. And this would be of no meaning if the average person doesn't know what Credit Suisse is. Just like mentioning the Global One product does nothing if people don't know what it is.
Once again, just my two cents' worth.