If you have seen the latest Heritage Bank television commercial, you will agree with either of these two positions- Heritage Bank did a good job or the bank made you proud as an African.
The Heritage Bank television commercial is titled: ‘The New Kings and Queens of Africa’. From my findings, the commercial was created by Noah’s Ark, one of Nigeria’s fastest growing agencies. Noah’s Ark did a pretty good job by launching Heritage Bank into TV with a sticky message.
Here is my critique of ‘The New Kings and Queens of Africa’:
There are two metrics I use to review ads. Every great ad must be target audience relevant. You must have seen many commercials replete with needless CGIs and sci-fi frames that make you are wonder who the commercial is talking to.
For the Heritage commercial, the message was unambiguous from the first few frames. The campaign is targeting an emerging ‘cult’ of entrepreneurial and hardworking Africans. While it is somewhat awkward that the bank used Africa, it also a wise decision as the bank will at any point in time plan its entry into any African country.
Second barometer for me is – strategic relevance. For a bank with a rocky history, it will be counter-productive to launch its TV communication with the usual puffing and huffing direction pushed by most Nigerian banks. If the strategy is to tell the market that Heritage Bank is here to claim its place by partnering with a new movement of innovative and hardworking Nigerians, the message is therefore spot-on.
However, the film underplayed some core achievements of African kings and inventors. While 60 seconds is too short to properly feature them, the film had ample time to show the Pyramid of Giza, Groundnut Pyramid, Cocoa House etc. The director wasted some frames on setting the tone for the film. Those frames should have quickly picked on major ‘heritage’ that is known to Africa apart from the Bronze head and very few of its Kings.
While there is no need to use CGIs and exaggerated effects to boost the film’s appeal, the focused much on persons and not the actual heritage that are still standing till today.
Corporate ads are often times ‘vision-communicators’. Great corporate ads should inspire, incite (positively) and direct anyone that sees it. It is often has a bulls-eye it targets, a great corporate ad should speak to employees, shareholders, customers, suppliers, stakeholders and even competition. In the last 20 years with more than 100 corporate ads created in Nigeria, I can only give pass mark to less than 10 of the universe.
The Heritage Bank television commercial is one of them. On a scale of one to 10, I will score Heritage Bank television commercial 7.
