What’s with du? It’s so dunt!

The buzz around Music on Demand by du, “yeah du’s got some new service for downloading music”, “why iTunes ain’t opening the shop for Music in UAE, du did that, and Nokia too”. All this got me to visit du’s website. I’m there and looking for a link to “Music on Demand”. Can’t find it any where on the homepage.

Being a web-head, first thing I did was typing www.du.ae/musicondemand, no luck. Tried musicondemand.du.ae, no. So I went back to du.ae’s homepage. Ah I get lucky there’s a 3,4 second rolling banner that I have to be lucky to see before it shows the next slide. So I clicked on it, it redirected me to a press release for “Music on Demand”, you joking? I’m a user, not a reporter. So I had to read the press release to find the link somewhere in the article. The worst part is the link looked exactly like this: www.du.ae/MyWorld. But anyways I clicked on it.

You want to show me a service you take me to its press release page? Just, why?

This is so not “du”. That was my first impression on the service before even thinkin’ of using it. Because everything done on the page was unprofessional. Back in the last two years I used to give example of du’s website for information architecture and how usable it was, and most remarkably how it connected the brand and went online with it, all intact.

This portal? Not du to me, that’s dunt. I’ll tell ya why! First let me explain something out here. If all this was seen on a start-up’s page, some guys in a garage or workin’ from home, that’d be forgivable because they can go wrong given they’re resources might be tight and limited. du though, can’t go wrong. No excuse! du ain’t a 10K-capital company, that’s why! So if I was du, I’d be ashamed, because if I was du I could afford professionals.

Here’s some.

Branding

This is the part that shows it’s a team that cannot relate to anything design. Why? I can bet on it, the designer didn’t have a look at du’s Branding Guidelines at all. Reason? None of the type-faces used are correct, nor the style of type used. The only things used out of du’s brand is the Logo, and the color pallete, and that’s it. It doesn’t feel du. While I’m not a du insider nor ever worked on Brand du, creatively du is one of my favorite brands that were born in UAE, that’s why it feels odd when you find it going down the toilet with such an awful artwork/development.

Identity Crisis

They call the service “Music on Demand”. Though you don’t see that name anywhere on the page! No where! Literally no where! Check these awkward details.

• Page title(what appears on top of the tab & browser window) is “du” and only clean “du”.
• Subdomain is “content”.
• Website Logo is “du”.

How am I supposed to know what this is called or get this programmed in my mind? How are you working on the awareness? How would anyone identify this other than being a du service which doesn’t feel like it?

This website doesn’t only drift from du’s brand, but this service has identity crisis too. The page doesn’t know what this service is called.

On top of the page, they called it “My World Beta”. Get your act together. Decide, is it “My World” or “Music on Demand”. With all the ads and branding activities couldn’t du invest in a brand for its new service? I don’t know, personally, I’m disappointed at du.

And the cheap part is how skewed, pixelated, and how badly images are resized. I mean they are artists and musicians, get some good photos or resize them well. Man! Such a cheap work.

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It’s Orange, it’s White, it’s Laazi ads

Every Sunday, the appointments section of Khaleej Times gets Orange with daring Whites in words. As simple as these words are to be put are as creative Laazi’s ads are.

Our hardworking great friends at Laazi.com think it might be easier to upload your CV to their portal than punching your Boss!

Refresh your bitching, complaint about a new Job

Weekend was so good? Job’s gonna’ take that buzz away? You need a new Job!

The above ads aren’t just a creative copy well-written, but an image of a team well reflected in Type!

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Domains of Branding

How much could your brand suffer if it didn’t own the domain name that reads its name? Obviously the number is out of reach. What brought my attention back to this issue is by dialing Showtime.com. It’s a domain name with an automated landing page at Network Solutions. I’ve never dialed Showtime, I’ve always been taken by a link to apparently Showtime Arabia instead.

A quick look at the whois records of the domain name, it reads that Showtime Tours Incorporated, a company in GB owns the domain name since 2003. But then again this website is down.

Now the interesting part, the website showtime.com has a ranking of 157,224 on Alexa and according to Compete Rank it has 64,427 U.S visitors a month. Now you might think 64K ain’t that a big deal? Okay, how about 64K showtime seekers/followers who have to either click/search/type elsewhere and get frustrated till they find the domain name that actually takes them to their beloved cable network Showtime?

Now I wouldn’t say Showtime couldn’t effort the price, that’d be underestimating their size, uninformed marketers? That wouldn’t be true either, in all the cases, that’s a miss!

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I Sony Ericsson vs. Be more Nokia

I had this in mind for a while but never remembered it while on the posting screen. I noticed a very weird campaign by Nokia lately, I’ve seen it everywhere. The core message is: do more, but the catch phrase was “Be more Nokia”, now that’s a complete copy of the “I Sony Ericsson XYZ” campaigns and new branding messages.

Here’s a TVC in case you haven’t seen the outdoors or prints:

And the SE’s:

While SE verbalized “Sony Ericsson” and swapped it with “Love”, Nokia got it rolling on an Adjective. Not so cool by Nokia! Being an SE fan, I feel proud though.

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Al-Masraf, between branding and the idea

Lately “Arbift”, one of the oldest banks in the UAE started a multi Million Dirhams rebranding project, renaming to “Al-Masraf” following a new website, long showing outdoor campaigns, and more to come.

The new brand

According to a press-release at Arbift website:

Al Masraf to replace the 33-year-old ARBIFT via a multi-million dirham re-branding program

Ibrahim Nasser Lootah: Move signifies Bank’s fundamental shift to the regional market

The new corporate identity is represented through the Trade mark “Al MASRAF” in Arabic and English presented in a specially blended blue color arranged vertically and separated by a golden yellow line and the circular shape with Arabesque links circling the Cinquefoil in golden yellow color with a blue background logo.

The golden yellow links circling the Cinquefoil conveys unity, collaboration for knowledge and prosperity. Also, it represents a coordinated system of people, activities, information and resources working together towards the goal of delivering a product or service to the client while the series of links symbolize the unified leadership of the bank.

Ahmad Majed Lootah added: “There is a marketing misunderstanding in the region that brand is about logo, stationary and corporate colors. Our re-brand campaign encompasses everything from customer perception and experience to quality, look and feel, customer care, retail and web environments.

Critique

A confusing bit in the identity is the fact that it has been a tradition for the last years to have “Al Masraf” as a meaning for an Islamic Bank. So at the first glance the new brand makes you feel it is an Islamic Bank which in some ways makes sense, having the fact that the new bank offers Islamic Financing plans. Yet confusing.

The slogan, “One Nation, One Bank”. Again a very ambiguous one. It’s confusing for many reasons.

• Al-Masraf is the only bank co-owned by the UAE government, so the “One Nation” bit points to UAE nation.

• Al-Masraf as mentioned in the above quotes from the press-release, is going to enter different Arab and International Markets , so? Is it an Arab kind of “Nation”?

• Al-Masraft as mentioned above portrays an Islamic face more than Arabic, considering the name, and in Arabic, the slogan uses the word Ummah which is taken differently by non-Arabs, which confusing enough gives the bank an Islamic Identity.

I like the visuals, it is so traditional and shows where the bank is coming from, yet sending confusing messages.

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Microsot Genuine Software Campaign

Now this is swanging, non-typical and a first-timer for MS. Microsoft has started a campaign against pirated Windows software and particularly the Windows family of products. They’ve started a one dimensional public campaign with free Tissue boxes completely painted with MS Genuine software alerts and messages, keep reading to see the photos of the tissue box.

It’s Gitex time and this sort of stuff are expected, but to the extent of having all the Emirates Gas Stations loaded with MS tissues, now that’s completely reach, n’ I’m diggin’ it.

Check these tissue boxes:

Low rez photos, sorry for that. I’m totally blown by this, MS is finally paying attention and fixing the image destroyed by pirated software and cleaning the mess. Long way to go, but still, neat!

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And back, Hydra, lost in translation

Back with lots of rants, lots of new experiments, News and dots and lines updates. Let’s get rollin’. In the last three weeks I had to visit Dubai more than seven times. And every time I did, I looked at Hydra Properties adverts and kept thinking who’d make such an awful English slogan translated from an Arabic s-lang, yet a cool Arabic slogan. “?????? ?? ??????” is the Arabic slogan–meaning “It’s about being different”. The English slogan is “The idea of being different” which is a word-by-word translation of the Arabic slogan.

So everytime I go down to Dubai I get to pick on some logo or some advert. Outta’ hand. It’s so easy to spot and reverse-engineer a logo design. Here’s the scenario with Hydra, 90% probability of being right!

The Scenario

Hydra has no real image to portray in the market, being a late entrant in the properties market, being lost among non-freehold rules in Abu Dhabi and the lack of real launches shows the lack of orderly organized PR campaigns and Ad campaigns, which brings me back to the logo.

The logo gets roots from a business plan mission statement. One of the founders keeps on pushing the envelope using those words so it gets sticky. When the time comes for going visual, the Arabic slogan needs to get an English face, but, well, it got translated by an Arabic designer(with really no know-how about English copy writing) who wanted to flex some muscles and show sophistication. So it goes like “The idea of being different”.

Now in the properties and development world, ideas can’t stand for nothing. Offerings do! I’m so in love with the way Schon properties came out, it’s about what you’re actually adding to the stack of crowded people hanging out of the bandwagon.

All so-not-thought-of.

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The Web for the “Now” Generation

The new tag line or the catch phrase for the new OperaMini beta 4 is “The web for the Now Generation”. At the first glance I read it as “for the New generation”. Got back and I was wondering why was the “N” in capital, then read it as it was–Now. It can’t be a typo, not cuz Opera wouldn’t make mistakes but “New Generation” has been repeatedly used and absued for the last decade. Time for something new, “Now Generation”?

First thing that came to my mind was the “Play Now” technology that comes with Sony Ericsson Mobiles. Which got me to the idea of having thins Instantly, PlayNow is a pay per listen service via a media player in SE phones. And now “Now Generation”. A generation that wants everything instantly and can’t wait.

If my reading of the phrase and their objective is right, then it’s all about having it instantly. Neat! The all “Now” style is hot and portrays the right “Now” attitude and demand from the web-users on Mobiles.

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Communicate from the heart

It’s a fact, many brands and tag lines get word-by-word translations. Imagine having Nike’s “Just do it” translated into Arabic? Now think about what that would mean, it’d turn into such an offensive tag line instead of being a catch phrase. And otherwise is true too. Some phrases exist in both English and Arabic languages. Interestingly Mobinil a telecomm operator in Egypt has got it right with their tag using two equivalent phrases as their catch lines.

In English: Communicate form the heart

In Arabic: ????? ?? ?????

The two are so different in meaning even though they are nearly word-by-word translations.

In English: It’s about Sincerity and Passion.

In Arabic: It’s an S-lang phrase, used when spending on something accessible and easy to purchase in a way it could be taken for granted. Turned into text and formal, it is talking sincerely and freely all the way from deep down.

Although I feel there has been a mix up somewhere, I could still give it a plus. But still, the identity has a different taste in English, deeper in Arabic.

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Full Cream vs. Low Fat

A real simple reality yet amusing, hearing what you wanna’ hear. Why is it “Full Cream” and not “Full Fat”? And why is it “Low Fat” and not “Low Cream”? Rings the bells? Recall the last time you bought milk?

On the way to Abu Dhabi I took Shk Zayed Road, in the middle of the jam I saw a little van with Milk ads trying to zigzag, first it was scary to see the van doing that, right until it was really packed and I ended behind it. Saw the milk packs, “Full Cream” & “Low Fat” options.

Hearing what you want to hear

Interestingly I found it odd but still really makes so much of sense. If you’re healthy and want full milk, you get yourself the “Full Cream”, if not you’ll try the ones with lower fat, yes, hold it right here, why is it “Cream” when it’s a positive thing, and “Fat” when it’s negative?

Just think it, it’s amusing, when you’re concerned about your health and diet you would be thinking it in all “Health” terms, thus your mind works that way too, it calls it “Fat”. Ironically when you think about the taste and quality, your thinking pleasure and perfection, which points you to “Cream”, and not “Fat”.

Now that’s smart branding and naming. I know it’s a traditional thing, but still, it’s something.

Or could I just be completely wrong and the case is that Cream is not Fat nor the other way around?

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