Watermelon Advertising, will that be ever true for advertising agencies in Dubai?
First it was a surprise. Then as I settled down I understood it as a phenomenon, a cultural specialty. I had to finally accept the fact that advertising in GCC is more about visual presentation than copy. Splash a big picture of a gorgeous woman with blue mascara with a big logo and a clichéd tagline, you are almost there. Brand positioning is never heard of. For real estate ads it is just lifestyle imagery; pictures of SMILING people-family running on a meadow with father wearing a striped blue T shirt while a smiling mother sits on a mat making lunch ready with a 4×4 parked in the backdrop. Almost all ads look like pseudo slaphappy posters.
Every ad looks inviting from the outside. Like cherries, they tantalize you and you can guess what you are going to get. Intellectual teasing or smart twists hardly exist. Ads like watermelons are nowhere to be seen, where they invite you subtly with their pale green color, hiding red treats under their skins and you dig into their flesh to get entertained. And the sweet taste stays.
Now I realize I am not alone in this. Many have told me the same. But clients are worried that if they take a different route they might lose their money. Why take a risk when there is always a minimum response guaranteed in the cliché?
Tags: Advertising agencies in Dubai, Copywriter Dubai, English content writer uae, watermelon advertising dubai
Draw a smiley face on the red, juicy watermelon and you essentially reflect the same ‘cliche’ in a whole different way…you mitigate the ‘agency’s risk’ in trying out something new and still get to experiment with the fruit.