When a popular novelist, Ayi-Kwei Armah, wrote that “the beautiful ones are not yet born” only a few took the contextual meaning to heart.
However, what Armah gave to the literary world years ago has resurfaced in a financial brand campaign as Skye Bank plots to outshine some of its most creative television commercials such as ‘Hakuna Matata’, ‘I wish’, and ‘Skye Bank coming to town’ with the newly launched ‘Grass to Grace’.
The new commercial features musician Panshak Zamani, known as Ice Prince; blogger Ladun Liadi; and maritime mogul, Taofiq Adegbite; in a two-prong 50 minute gig.
Tagged ‘The Skye is Big Enough’, the campaign sells a dream beyond the bank’s products, exploring Ice Prince’s humble beginnings and his determination to turn the challenge into opportunities.
Nwamba Claude, the Client Service Director of Centerspread, the agency that produced the creative, disclosed that it was borne out of deep research, as the bank wants a paradigm shift of people’s mindset to see the bank standing by them and having the youth at heart.
“We used areas that could relate to the youth such as fashion, sport, music and a lot more in the commercial.
“We realised that people like Ice Prince have a similar story to that of Skye bank, which is a bank that comes into the life of someone and makes his or her dreams become a reality,” Claude said.
Skye Bank Executive Director (Corporate Services), Abimbola Izu, explained that the campaign expresses what the bank believes in, its rich heritage, and a bright drawing customers and potential customers.
She said the rebranding will involve heavy investment which will be worth every kobo, as it is geared towards making the bank a better value proposition for customers.
Why does Skye Bank believe that the campaign would upstage others?
Izu replied: “We started pre-merger in 2006 so it is clear that we have been able to manage the image of the bank all along in terms of marketing communication to know the trends.
“We started with ‘Skye bank is coming to town, I wish, Hakuna Matata’. We must raise the stakes.
“When you look at the agency as one of the major creative agencies in this country, we thought of what is the next level then we picked ‘grass to grace’.
“The bank came from nowhere to become one of the major banks in the country, hence the representation of all the cast in the commercial.”
Skye Bank Communication Manager, Rasheed Bolarinwa, stressed that the bank is after what it can do for the society in terms of uniqueness, “it is not just any bank ‘Skye Bank is Skye Bank.’ None of the commercials you see around today has gone this way.
“We have gone from using human true story that you can verify and also call on this entire people to tell about the bank. There is a bit of relationship between the human and the bank, people that are coming to Skye Bank want to tell their story.
“We want to lift people from nowhere to a better future; we want to see how people can actually build on their God-given talent to become grater in whatever business endeavour they do.”
Ice Prince said he feels honoured and blessed to be involved in the campaign, because in telling the story of the bank he is also telling his story, to make people understand that there is nothing impossible to achieve.
