Humain goes full AI for Saudi National Day with Monks

Humain just did an ad for Saudi National Day. Sure, this being a patriotic ad, they are allowed a lot of the usual bells and whistles without falling into cliche territory (a very fine line to walk if there was any). Now I was allowed to glance at the original strategy deck, so the core idea is this "Our direction builds from HUMAIN’s strategic foundation: positioning Saudi National Day as a powerful cultural moment that celebrates national pride while connecting it to innovation, progress, and global ambition."

Which is understandable for a kingdom with large ambitions, and the strategic moves to prove it, yet still has a very tribe-oriented mentality. Now the major innovation?

All of this is AI. Completely, totally, AI. This from Moey Shawash Linkedin post: "Proud to share our Saudi National Day film for HUMAIN.Built entirely with AI by a sharp and nimble team at Monks. Client led by Cherice Whewell, Mazen Bassil, MSc and Eid Dalbani. Creative led by Gavin Stradi and his extended creative team, and strategy by yours truly. Special thanks to Adem KILIÇ, Rafael Gabriel Costa Garrido and Irina Burres Kungurova."

There are a lot of people who are screaming murder with the new AI taking over, well, almost everything.  Then there are examples such as the above that argue the opposite.

The copy leans towards pride, without overdoing it, which again is an easy trap to fall into. But it is the end line which steals the show "3ezouna bitab3ouna" (our pride is in our character). That's a lot of guts packed in two words of Arabic. Note this is this year's topic issued by the government itself.

On the whole considering the low quality of ads produced for Saudi National Day, it is a total breath of AIr (hehe see what I did here) that Humain came up with this. So total Kudos for those who were involved. See the ad here.

Saudi Odyssey: Comparatively this is a gem.

Visit Saudi. First the good points: BETC does a great job at making this... sort of sexy visually. The copy is incredible "this land is calling" followed by "Saudi welcome to Arabia" (akin to Malaysia truly Asia - whereby a nation encompasses a whole culture and a dig to all competitors who claim to show "Arabia" - no names, you know yourselves). This is also much much better than the Messi/messy effort (here), than the Neom brouhaha (here) even if Neom is included in this ad, or the Saudi Airlines (Saudia) ad with no arrival point (here). The minus points: I am not sure there is a cohesive thread here - never mind getting an actress who looks like a Natalie Portman (insert all Star Wars references here because the ad is called "Saudi Odyssey"), or the rather boring platitudes before the lovely line "this land is calling" (which are very ho-hum). The visuals however compensate for the lack of the strong concept I suppose.

Again, considering the oddities we were subjected to prior to this film, this one seems a gem indeed. Watch the film here. 

Saudia, this is how we fly: The ad with no destination

Well, Saudia has a new ad. One that tries to portray the brand as dynamic, vibrant, and forward-looking. Here's a story that happened with me on Saudia in 2002, we were geared to go back from Jeddah to Beirut. Everyone boarded and then, the plane would not leave the tarmac. The situation remained so for more than an hour and everyone started questioning what was going on. The answer was that a prince in first class wanted pineapple and someone was running all the way to get it. Such was the situation with Saudia, I have no idea if things got better since, but here's hoping.

Now all this brings us to the current ad of the airlines. The idea is "this is how we fly". We start off with a retro image of a female cabin crew checking on the passengers this morphs into a newer current image of the said cabin crew. From there on, I have no clue where the film goes. It might be the case that the creatives did not have a solid concept, or it might be that the client interfered heavily in the ad, or client servicing were over their heads, but the result remains the same: the ad is a jumble of pastiches that has little or no backbone.

For some reason there's cartoons of a male and a veiled female astronauts, there is the shadow of a plane over a villa's pool, we have the customary images of men and women looking up the sky, there is a drone/small plane flying over men in traditional thob, naturally there are fully-attired pilots and cabin crew members, and yes, a female pilot (veiled of course), and there is a couple with the male trying to book their flight over the phone (this is blurry, because there is "Saudia Tech Summit" on the screen and the phone says "pick me a destination I have not been to"). But also there is a scene of two people playing football on top of a mountain (while a veiled female football player tries to score - interestingly, this comes after the VO says "we have our creativity in art"), of people in a souk (which again, comes after the VO says "we have our way of greeting" - sadly the image reminds you more of merchants trying to get you inside their shops as opposed to really men trying to greet you), and of a full moon above a traditional architecture building among other local scenes. OK, it might be just me - but I have watched the film several times, and none of this makes any sense put together. For an ad about an airline, this one has no destination. It really tries to be as "everything, everywhere, all at once".

The only saving grace is that "This is how we fly" becomes "lana jawna" in Arabic which has a double-entendre of "we have our flying space" and "we have our mood". 

Watch the ad here.

Lebanon: 9/11 twenty years later

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly (Manhattan Mon Amour)

I have no idea where the French embassy is in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In 2003, the company driver knew. He took my passport along with two photographs the art director in the cubicle next to me took on the white wall of the office. My visa was picked up later, thank you very much. 

If I am relating this incident it is because, thanks (or rather no thanks) to Ziad Jarrah, one of the 26 terrorists who executed the attacks, for a Lebanese, getting a visa went from difficult to nearly impossible (interestingly, considering the majority of them were Saudi nationals, these visa nightmares did not apply to them). Sure it did not help that the Lebanese, through time and their own silly machinations, built a very bad rap for themselves worldwide (please, don't be silly all denominations included - because I know people will inject in this sentence their own political views. Hint: Maronites in Australia are labelled "wogs" - a very unflattering term if there was ever one. So anyone trying to twist my words, chill). 

Still, if you are a Lebanese in the Gulf, obtaining a visa did not even necessitate you going to the embassy. If you were a Lebanese, in Lebanon, the hurdles to get the said visa were immense. And the difficulties increase by the day. I can spend several posts detailing my embassy/airport misadventures. I have spoken to Saudi nationals, and no, they did not get the same treatment.

All this is a reminder that the consequences of the 9/11 attacks were unevenly spread. In the Western media the talk is about the 2,448 US servicemen who died in Afghanistan. Small reminder, there were also 46,000 Afghan civilian casualties. People, who literally had zero terrorist nationals among the 26 who executed the attack.

Saudi Tourism: Islamically compliant fun

Look you have to hand it out to them - making Islamically compliant tourism fun is no mean feat, yet Saudi Tourism does exactly that in an ad which is fantastically well edited (OK, fine the technique was used to the best effect by Nike prior - look here) but still credit is due for finding perfectly matching scenes which illustrate different aspects of Saudi landscapes and activities whether you are young and single (males only in the car though) or a family (which is how usually everything in Saudi is divided). And truthfully having had a stint in Saudi prior, I can tell you there is indeed much to do.

But again, the ad is incredibly well researched and executed all while still being Islamically compliant (while at the beach, a woman has only her feet showing as the rest is in a white linen tunic, or while riding an ATV the girl is still wearing a black abaya, or as I said previously, the segregation between young single males and families). Still the ad is alluring, charming and reveals the many things to do in Saudi.

I could have a question though about its target audience, which leaves me a little confused. If non-Arabs are targeted, despite all its lovely scenes, they might be a little baffled as to the implicit restrictions. Now, if Arabs from the Gulf nations are, this is par for the course for them. Perhaps, quite simply, their target are local Saudis who are invited to discover more of their country... Still, a very well done ad.

See it in full here.