Sterling Bank did the "Agege Bread" nonsense on purpose

 

This was the ad Sterling Bank ran on Easter Sunday, they followed up with an apology creative that suggests that they had it all planned before, it's a criminal offense and their apology doesn't erode their stupidity. (Photo credit: Sterling Bank)

Sterling Bank is known for controversy, they’re taking the “Gen Z” appellations quite literally and while I have no problems with that, there has to be a point where they learn when to respect some certain boundaries, classic example of this is their failed Easter ad.

Sterling Bank ran an Easter ad that likened the resurrection of Jesus Christ to the process of making “Agege bread”, I can understand their goal, to spark conversations and get people to engage their brand throughout the festive season, they chose a silly route.

As a copywriter, I worked on the #BankWars series; I’m quite troublesome in that regard and likes to play with words, it was a no-brainer for me to jump on it when I was invited to the gig, that was a different case entirely and no sane person would liken it to religious affiliations.

Sterling Bank opted to drag themselves through this mud, they have to live with it, regardless of the fact that they apologized through the same medium they leveraged to share the ill-fated creative, it was a bloody mistake and one way or the other, they have to pay for it.

There were series of backlashes off Bank Wars, that was a good thing because the objective then was to get the older banks to respect them for something, like an errant son that is useful for bad examples, every dog will always have its day…

They were asked to apologize when other banks reported them for alleged insubordination and mutilation of institutional proprieties like logos and brand monuments, Sterling opted to pay hefty fines and didn’t apologize, they wanted to try same with religion but they have quickly backtracked.

A lot of people have come out to say it was a cool creative, we all can’t sleep and face same direction, there’s a reason we have people who thrive on being exception to the rule, my question to you is this: If Sterling thought it was cool, why did they apologize?

Speaking of their apology, they rode on the current trend of "who never fuck up, hands in the air", I want to believe this was their original plan, the agility in responding with a follow up design shows it was all planned, they wanted to fumble so badly so they can use the line, there's no sense in the route they took.

It is what it is, I am asking you this, can they launch such creative during Ramadan? Islam is a religion of peace but they will never allow anyone throw such around their faith. Whoever approved that creative from Sterling need to be questioned, creatives should be held accountable.

Someone opined that it could be inspired by the story of loaves of bread and pieces of fish, pure case of apples and oranges, my question to those of that school of thought is: Is there a correlation between “rose” and “multiply”? We might just endeavor to understand contexts before throwing opinions up and down.

Yes, they have apologized but it shouldn’t stop there. They should retrain their creative team against future occurrence of such nonsense. I’ve moved my Easter Ad reviews to tomorrow, today is Simi’s birthday as well as Mr. Show Man, Deyemi Okanlawon. I think I should write about them… Okay, I will.