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If you’ve followed Zikoko for a while, then you know that we’re obsessed with ads. We’ve talked a lot about terrible Nigerian ads in the past so it’s only fair that we make noise when a brand makes an ad that blows our minds with its ingenuity. We’re here today to talk about the new ad for ALAT (the digital bank) titled: The Bank of the Future.
The ad begins with a voiceover asking this question:
We’re then shown a man in his living room. He’s on a video call with a coworker while working at a holographic table similar to the one Tony Stark uses in the MCU movies.
When the video call ends, he turns off the holograms and projects his computer screen onto the wall using his watch. Based on the things we’ve seen him do in this short time, it’s clear that this ad is set in a future where technology has greatly evolved. This is made even clearer when he calls out to his Digital Life Assistant named ALAT and she responds with a pun.
He acknowledges the pun with what can only be described as a “big man chuckle” and has her update him on his schedule. She does this effortlessly while also finding and buying a cheaper ticket for his flight, re-scheduling his workout time, and sending a grocery list to his phone. ALAT is clearly on some Artificial Intelligence shit.
On his way to the grocery shop, ALAT is telling the man where exactly all the items on his list will be in the supermarket when he spots a beautiful woman crossing the street with a box in her hands. This leads to the following interaction between the man and ALAT:
Artificial Intelligence: 1
Humanity: 0
We then see the man at the supermarket’s checkout counter after he’s done grocery shopping. To make sure he’s not forgetting anything, he asks ALAT if there’s anything else and she assures him that he’s all done. As he thanks her and leaves the supermarket, we get a glimpse of a holographic ALAT bidding him a wonderful day.
Look at her in the corner, serving iRobot realness.
The ad ends with this message:
Fin.
In this expertly made 1 minute and 39 second ad, ALAT (the digital bank) shows its plan to change the future narrative of banking by becoming a daily and integral part of its customers’ daily lives. It also highlights the role technology (i.e. Artificial Intelligence) will play in bringing about this future where banking won’t be just about financial transactions, it’ll be a lifestyle – powered by ALAT.
Check out the ad:
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We’ve already established before that tv adverts seem to exist in their own cinematic universe with specific rules. However, Nigerian ads are in a league of their own, as, in a bid to sell viewers what they’re meant to in the shortest possible time, they mostly end up making no sense.
Using the logic of Nigerian advertising, here’s how to make your very own drug commercial.
1) To play a family in the ad, cast a bunch of actors who have absolutely no on-screen chemistry with each other.
Because who needs convincing and memorable performances, am I right?
2) Have an illness hit the entire family at the same damn time.
Because the only way you can scare people into buying your drug is if you convince them that an illness is going to swoop in one day and wipe out their families in one swoop.
3) Exclude one parent from this disease.
Usually the mother. Because we all know that fathers in commercials are generally useless.
4) Have her take one look at her sick family and – using the hella vague symptoms they have – immediately decide what it is that has afflicted them, even though she has no background in medicine whatsoever.
Because this is an ad and not a Tarantino movie, they only have a few seconds to get to the point. Doctors and hospitals be damned. Have her run off to the neighbourhood pharmacy, leaving no one to watch her sick husband and kids.
5) Have her return with a drug – the one being advertised – that is going to magically cure this illness in minutes.
You know what I mean. Follow-up doses don’t exist in ads and every illness is cured within the same time it takes to resolve the central plot of every Big Bang Theory episode (30 mins).
6) Have the family (who were practically coughing up blood earlier) surprise their matriarch with how much better they’re feeling using crackhead-like feats of physical activity.
“The hell…HOW ARE YOU DOING HEADSTANDS?!”
7) For the ad’s last shot, have the family pose for a group picture with the drug.
“We’re not breaking the fourth wall. We’re just taking this picture to make sure we always remember that time the fam almost got wiped out by a mystery illness. Say cheese, y’all.”