It is always gratifying to see big business tightening its belt, and Absa should be praised for its decision not to pay extravagant fees to an advertising agency to handle its “My bank” campaign. Indeed, in the fortnight since the launch of the campaign, it has become abundantly clear that Absa has not only economised by eschewing professional copywriters altogether, but has empowered previously marginalised camps by entrusting its re-branding to a band of rhesus monkeys chained to typewriters and supervised by crack addicts.
It is proving an inspired combination, the junkies bringing to the campaign variations on a theme of retardation and dependency, while the monkeys provide hypnotically stultifying repetition. So far the permutations of random nouns (imbued with a breathy, posturing, undergraduate whimsy by virtue of being used in very short sentences) are proving infinite.
“My bank is my shelter, my light,” murmurs one voiceover, oblivious to ominous implications of houses repossessed and former clients huddling in mountain grottos. “My bank is my knowledge,” it continues, “my future, my smile.” At least they know their demographic: people with the general knowledge of bantam chickens, the future prospects of a rhesus monkey chained to a typewriter, and a smile reminiscent of a three-storey concrete cube frosted with bullet-proof windows and graffiti.
And then it all goes straight to hell. “My bank is my twirling, sparkling coloured glass mobile. My bank shines on me.” There just aren’t enough therapists in the world for this kind of thing.
But it did leave one wondering just how the monkeys and the crackheads settled on the words they finally chose. “My bank is my anchor” (a print spread in a large weekly) is fairly self-explanatory: stability, solidity, a port in the storm, concrete slippers off the end of a pier for loan defaulters. But 10 pages later one discovers that “My bank is my vuvuzela.” How on earth can that be? Is my bank cheap and plasticky? Does it insinuate itself into sports events? Does it make a constant horrible noise in my ear? Oh, wait, now I see.
But even more perplexing was this: If Absa is trying to lure more middle-class consumers into its mighty vaults, why doesn’t it simply cut straight to the chase with metaphors far more familiar and comforting to its target market? Why bother with the patronising racial profiling that hawks downtown Jozi to young blacks, Provence to middle-aged English whites and a plekkie by die see to landlocked Afrikaners? And didn’t anyone tell them that people who collect twirling, sparkling coloured glass mobiles generally keep their money safe by sewing it into the hems of their kaftans?
No, clearly Absa doesn’t understand what banking means to the humble majority, because if it had bothered to ask, its relaunch would have been quite different. Cue heroic, nostalgic strings and woodwinds. Cut to a bathroom cabinet …
“My bank is my haemorrhoid cream. My bank is my tampon. My bank is my French tickler condom. My bank is my jockstrap, my next-door neighbour with the big breasts whom I covet, my mullet. My bank is my collection of porcelain Cavalier King Charles spaniels.
“My bank is my garden gnome with the eyes painted yellow so burglars will mistake it for a tokoloshe in poor light. My bank is my dog Ninja that barks at white people. My bank is my grandad’s souvenir from North Africa that still smells like a Libyan prostitute. My bank is my uncle’s roving, clammy hands, my underwire that keeps stabbing me in the ribs.
“My bank is my collection of SABC3 CDs. My bank is my gardener Wellington. My bank is my overwhelming sense of failure, my creeping suspicion that I might not be a lesbian after all, my Catholic angst, my Semitic nihilism, my threadbare ubuntu crumbling against the onslaught of mobilised capitalism. My bank is my collection of Krugerrands and the two cyanide capsules I keep for when the revolution comes. My bank is my tendency towards hysterical blindness. My bank — until recently — was Schabir Shaik.
“My bank is my best friend. My bank is my host. My bank is inviting me round for dinner: something about fava beans and a fine Chianti …”