Monday, January 17, 2011

Not That Sweet Nor Funny Campaign!!

I do not pay attention for commercials but some commercials are too provoking to the level that you can’t ignore like for instance Bawadi Halwa where its new ad campaign makes fun from prisoners as they are not human beings . It is even more worse than the Adel Emam Vodafone ad which had a good message but wrong star , if they had hired Yahia El-Fakherany , it would have been better !!
Bawadi Halwa Campaign Ad 4
Bawadi Halawa campaign Ad 5
Bawadi Halwa Campaign Ad 1
In Egyptian culture Halva and bread are always associated with the food prisoners’ families bring to the prisoners in jail because they are cheap.
Now Prisoners are paying their debt to the society in jails according to the law , you do not have the right to exploit prisoners’ rights in this way and think it is ok to make fun of them.
I hope the human rights organizations bring this matter up.
And for the Badawi company , well be sure I will boycott your Halva losers !!

13 comments:

  1. Agreed. Those ads are terrible. The person who made them is a sick lowlife scumbag.

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  2. Bawadi is a trademark of Harvest Foods inc. It's an American company..you should boycott it anyways, An american company manufacturing Halawa and tahina in Egypt is absurd and insulting, same reason there are no Pizza huts in Italy.. they tried , it didn't work..Italians just passed them by and spit on them.

    next time you go to the markt, you should spit on all Bawadi products[make sure it's a sticky colourful phlegm]

    achtung Halva!

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  3. Z, your post made me hungry, so for $29.66 on Amazon.com I just bought Joyva Halvah Marble Bars, 1.75-Ounce Bars (Pack of 36) which was the best price I could find. It doesn't seem like a cheap food to me, at US $7.53 per pound. More of a luxury confection.

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  4. @@ Is it just me or is the ngo docu/activist video style to suggest they're doing the 'mujrimeen' a favour by humanising them. The lines are so humiliating.

    You are my first stop for news now, asra3 wa ashmal min ay masdar tani - how do you do it?

    No one inside or outside Libya seems to know what is really going on. Has the bayt li sakinihi diversion been succesful or not? Waiting for you to sort it out for me. :D So used to thinking reform will take generations, but I am trying to be optimistic about Libya and Tunisia too. I have no idea how they will change the constitution to allow fair elections, but at least they have a chance unlike the mess France left lebanon and the US gave iraq to rule out a stable government. Will 'aydi altwansa aldhahabiya' in qadhafi's words be allowed to build Tounis AKTHAR khadharan or will neighbouring and foreign powers meddle and turn it into 'tounis sawda'? There are predictions of everything from a military coup, to islamists, to alqaida, or a US/French/ Arab picked suitable sucessor taking over. A lot of the people put forward now remind me of some 'unfortunate' iraqi politicians. Still 86 per cent (Jazeera poll) say Tunisia is the beginning of change in the region, such a contrast to the usual self-defeating results of these polls. Yes it's wildly optimistic but isn't that necessary even for long term vs. short term change?

    Everyone is quoting qadhafi on the Tunisian intifada but what about ''the only democracy in the region'' TM, they had an equally fearful and dissaproving response to people in a tiny far away country having a say in how they are governed. Not just Palestinians, Egyptians and Jordanians but the whole region must to be governed by dictators who don't answer to their people apparently. Silvan Shalom was even more blatant than Netin ya hawh. Love the fact that they're being so open about it, probably a necessary price for 'moderate' Arab regimes being increasingly vocal and explicit about their alliance on Arab media - again great.

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  5. Sudanese Optimist1/17/2011 02:26:00 PM

    Wow Zeinobia...

    So you actually do have some form of sensitivity towards others (the prisoners are Egyptians so I don't know whether that qualifies as being 'the other) and you believe in not insulting groups of people in the media...?

    Well done - now consider doing the same to the Sudanese and black Africans who are depicted in racist and deniratory terms in your media.

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  6. @Anon 4:13 You are disgusting and a racist. This is an Egyptian ad by an Egyptian company, but as usual America has to be involved, because Egyptians are not responsible for anything. And I'm sure the Italians are not as vulgar as you; if they don't like something, they don't buy it--but spitting makes you an animal.

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  7. Im all for using Egyptian products first and each person is free to put his money where he wishes, last Anon.
    BTW, the best halawa bars are al rashidy and I have them sent to me in EU and use them as energy bars :)

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  8. The Ministry of Interior - Prisons Department is to be held accountable for permitting this exploitative ad.

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  9. @Anonymous 1/18/2011 12:09:00 AM, Wow, El Rashidy Halva is only US $5.49 for 23 oz! It's Egyptian, I see. Maybe I'll get some and have a taste-test competition against Joyvah, which is a New York Jewish brand common in the US.

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  10. I agree with Anonymous 1/17/2011 10:22:00 PM that Anonymous 1/17/2011 04:13:00 AM is being gratuitously unpleasant toward Americans.

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  11. Hey, that was a joke.. if you think I actually go and spit on shelves or I'm encouraging people to do so then you really lack a sense of humour or maybe an avid Bawadi fan?

    Even Italians will disagree with you, Italians are more vulgar than you think and to them that's not really an insult but of course I don't know if any Italian actually spat on a Pizza Hut, that was another joke that Italians would never appreciate American food[wannabe Italian] which is inferior

    Even Americans make fun of Pizza hut due to that fact:
    http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/4120e30316/pizza-hut-in-italy
    [read the subtitles]

    I'm not big on Halawa.. too sweet for me but the best one I ever ate was in Greece, it had quite a distinctive taste, I think they mix sesame with olive oil, Polish ones are quite rich and actually have more almonds than halva and not too sweet so Jason maybe you should also try a Greek or Polsih brand but I think buying a non-Jewish product will probably upset your superiors :P

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  12. @Jason: yes I know Halawa (not Halava) are among the things lifted and misrepresented as Jewish :)

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  13. "I think buying a non-Jewish product will probably upset your superiors :P" and "yes I know Halawa (not Halava) are among the things lifted and misrepresented as Jewish :) "

    :)

    I haven't had Polish halvah/halawa but I've had Russian, and it was terrible. It was made out of sunflower seeds instead of sesame. Yuk!

    Pizza Hut sucks. I won't defend them just because they are an American company.

    I Googled "Badawi halvah" and this Egyptian Chronicles post is the second hit, haha. The first hit was Bawadi – Prisoners on Middle East Campaign. They explain:

    Real prisoners and ex-cons are the stars of a new TV campaign for Egyptian food manufacturer Harvest Food’s Bawadi halva. The work of indy outfit Elephant Cairo, the agency chose prisoners to front the campaign because they eat more halva than any other segment of Egyptian society. The five commercials see different prisoners discussing the attributes of good halva and the difference between good and great halva. Since time immemorial, prisoners in Egypt are known to eat just ‘bread and halva’. The final tagline is: “Those who know halva best, love Bawadi.”

    The comments there are favorable to the ads, but one person says "elli fahmin bel halawa eat lebanese halawa as the egyptian stuff is crap." I cannot judge as I have had neither.

    Apparently the prisoners are real, not actors. I do not see this as exploitative. Presumably they got paid and weren't forced to perform.

    By the way, you guys have seen this Sacha Baron Cohen clip, right? حماس و الحمص

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