Leap, another digital bank from a bank that defrauded you

Neo from Bank Audi, BO2 from Byblos Bank, DIGI by Bank of Beirut, Wink Pay by Credit Libanais. And now leap by SGBL.  Sounds familiar? Sounds like someone trying to get in from the window when they slammed the door shut in your face? Banks who defrauded you are now with a vengeance on the "digital bank" front. Well, sure, with the accounts capped at not-so-high figures and the withdrawal much less than the one in the traditional bank, and with them not truly advertising who the mother bank is, I understand the appeal. Mind you, the original money is still stuck in our traditional accounts. To be honest though "leap into moments" is lame. Very.

Neo goes banking on Ziad Rahbani

Neo, the digital wallet of Audi Bank (cough, ahem!) has a new ad which basically riffs on the late Ziad Rahbani in a timely (even if catching it by the end of the time - because the funeral has been off for a while). To explain "bala wala fee" is a wink to his hit "bala wala chi" (which translates into "without anything"). I do understand the people's urge to start humming (me humming off key if you want to know), but also this is forgettable. It does not enter into the annals of ads. And yes, this being a subsidiary of a bank makes it an case of adding insult to injury.

Bank Audi does a masterstroke revisiting an old gem

Do you remember the wonderful sun ad by Banque Audi (here). The idea was to get some schoolkids to draw the sun... Until one of them tears a paper with scissors, hang the "frame" on the glass window and the real sun comes in.  Well, the same boy from the ad is back. Back with a tender vengeance (here). Look you need to understand the first ad to understand the second. Because the boy does the same and instead of the original message "your capacity is bigger than you think", we get "no matter how cloudy it gets, the sun will rise again". And even if like every Lebanese banks are not currently my favorite institutions the ad is really, really timely and really, really well done. 

Audi Bank - tiptoeing around communication

Banks. Remember those? Well, in my case I have zero faith in them at this point. Considering that like many people I lost a fortune in them. So it was - with much surprise - that I saw a new ad for Audi Bank. Actually I saw it as a scroller on a site which pushed me to see if there was a longer version somewhere else. The longer version turned out to be 10 seconds which is telling I suppose. The ad is about cards and students studying abroad and how parents can send them money remotely, and monitor their spending. However, like anyone with a brain, I am leaning on cash since the crisis broke in 2019. All my clients pay me in cash or via a Western Union transfer. Because at this point, banks are a distant memory.