As South Africans currently experience an ever tightening economic pinch and
where cost of living increases are about the only thing you can bet your bottom
dollar (or in this case, Rand) on, FNB celebrates those who are able to adapt
and conquer financial pitfalls.
The bank’s new television commercial, developed by advertising and
communications agency DDB SA and production company Bomb Commercials,
features everyday people who develop simple yet genius solutions to setbacks,
where others might have given up.
Gavin Joubert, executive producer at Bomb Commercials, says: “’Inspired by
everyday innovation, FNB’s latest TV commercial honours the people who “make
a plan no matter what their situation’ was the brief given by the client, and
between the agency and ourselves we were allowed a lot of latitude.’
Conceptualised by the creative team at DDB, which is made up of executive
creative director Liam Wielopolski, copywriter Sanele Ngubane and agency
producer Rachel Andreotti; the ad makes use of authentic South African
characters with novel problems to solve, and weaves a unique emotionally and
culturally relevant fibre into the narrative. Some examples of this are young
street entrepreneurs who use pantyhose to shine shoes, mothers who prop
their beds on bricks so they can create extra storage space in the family home
and barbers who make the shade of a street side tree, their salon.
The casting process was developed with this objective in mind and
communicated to Johannesburg-based Kevin Grey Casting.
Says Joubert: “His brief was to find real people that we work with, interact with
and relate with on a daily basis. We did not encourage the casting of models or
actors/actresses that we would normally see in a banking ad as we wanted real
people with real day jobs to cast for this spot. In some of the roles we were
successful in achieving this and in other roles we would use characters that had
not been over exposed in the television world.’
Key crew members involved in the production included director Teboho Mahlatsi,
producer Mark Harrison, director of photography Werner Martiz, production
designer Dimitri Repanis and stylist Trudi Barklem.
Martiz used two Arri Alexa cameras to shoot the commercial over two days in
October at a number of locations in the Gauteng area: Johannesburg, Daveyton,
Soweto and Braamfontein.
Joubert concludes: “We are sure that the response will resonate very well with
the intended target market as the ad speaks in a very direct way without being
complicated and doesn’t promise things that most of us will not understand.’
FNB’s campaign cleverly echoes a message of adaptation as referenced in the
well-known George Bernard Shaw quote: “The people who get on in this world
are those who get up and look for the circumstances they want and, if they can’t
find them, make them.’
