FNB's advertising gone to the babies ...

I apologise for the delay of this week's review but I had a "roll" of a time with my car. Yeah, that's right, I was in an accident. Luckily no one else was involved and it was just me wanting to view Umhlanga Rocks in a new way. I must admit it looks much better sitting the right way up.

Anyway, enough about my time in the rain that we've had in Durbs and on with the reviews. It's not like I've lost anything ... I'm still crazy.

This week's review is on First National Bank's latest advert with the cute little babies. I say cute because that's what every female says when they spot that ad (okay, and I'm also secretly getting points on the ladies' side for saying "cute") but anyway ...

The advert's existence is there to tell us that FNB hasn't forgotten the personal touch, even though they know there is online banking, ATM's, cellphone technology and all the other cool gadgets that we don't really need, but hey, they're nice to have. However, it makes me wonder whether their choice of visuals are right, using the babies that is, and of course their actions.

I mean, there are A LOT of ways to display that you still have the personal touch, but this one I don't know why they chose it and I must admit I've been confused about FNB's adverts right from the one where it had the famous sheep herding the dogs. I mean ... huh?

With this latest ad though it's a bit disturbing. Let me ask you a question and you answer it, no thinking, just answer. When you hear a baby crying what's your natural reaction? Now I'm guessing that you answered with the following: 1) you will find out why it is crying; or (2) you will get a dummy and put it in it's mouth to make it shut up so you can carry on doing what you were doing. My guesses haven't failed me yet so I'm sure I wasn't far off. So when we refer back to the advert we see that after shots of babies playing with toy phones and machines it focuses on a baby crying and then another baby to the "rescue" with a dummy.

Translate that and it gives the impression that when you start complaining, don't expect the question "what's up?", but rather a "shut-up" response. Out of hearing and out of mind.

So as you can see I certainly didn't find that advert as the best way to put across what they wanted to, the voice-over artist does the best job in that case and not the visuals.

The route they could have taken is to have a scene where some object of some kind was given to someone and a little personal touch was given to it to make that bit special. It's the little things that count and usually when it's machines and ATM's they are made to handle things the general way and can't deal with the "little things" that add that personal touch everyone is looking for nowadays. With this scene it stays in FNB's latest style where the visual doesn't seem to be near what they are talking about and fits the bill perfectly. It's not excellent as the visual should go with what your business is about, but hey - it's not my style, it's theirs.

Rating: 2/10