A bank can look premium and still feel warm if the film puts people, light and everyday life at the centre and keeps the marble lobbies in the background. Bank of Muscat, Oman's largest bank, did exactly that in a campaign we produced with BPG, using fully AI-produced visuals in English and Arabic. The lesson for any financial brand video in the GCC is simple: polish earns attention, and warmth earns trust.
We are iklipse, a creative and AI production agency working across the GCC, Egypt, the US and Europe. Here is what the Bank of Muscat job taught us about how banks in the region can show up on screen.
Bank of Muscat carries a lot of weight in Oman, so its films have to carry it too.
Bank Muscat was founded in 1982 and has grown into the largest bank in Oman by assets, with total assets reported at more than OMR 13 billion (around $35 billion). Oxford Business Group has put its share of Omani banking sector assets at around 44%, roughly three times its nearest competitor.
That size is a gift and a trap. A bank this big can afford to look grand, and grand is easy to do. Glass towers, slow drone shots, a confident voiceover. The problem is that grand often reads as distant, and distant is the last thing anyone wants from the people holding their salary.
We worked with BPG to produce the whole campaign with AI.
For this campaign we partnered with BPG, one of the region's leading integrated communications agencies. BPG brought the idea and the client relationship. We handled the complete AI production.
That meant generating every visual in the film with AI, to a quality level a national bank can put its name to. It also meant building the campaign twice over: once for horizontal screens and once for vertical, so the same story works on a TV, a cinema screen, a YouTube pre-roll and a phone held in one hand. And it ran in both English and Arabic, so the bank could talk to its whole customer base in the language each person thinks in.
You can see the main film and the vertical cut on the Bank of Muscat case page.
Premium in finance comes from control, and AI production gives you a lot of it.
Banks are careful clients, and they should be. Every frame gets checked by marketing, compliance and often the board. On a traditional shoot, a note like "make the light warmer in that scene" or "the family should look more Omani" can mean a reshoot, which means days, a crew and a budget conversation nobody enjoys.
With AI production, those notes become edits. We can adjust light, wardrobe, setting and framing shot by shot and show the new version quickly. That level of control is what lets a bank chase a high finish without losing its nerve halfway through the approvals.
It also helps with formats. When you generate a scene, you can plan the vertical and horizontal frames together from the start. Nobody has to crop a person's head off to make a 9:16 version work.
If you want the long version of how we think about this, our post on responsible AI in advertising explains where we draw the line. Short version: AI can build the set and the light, and it should never fake a result.
Warmth has to be designed in, because it never shows up by accident.
Here are the choices we think separate a warm financial brand video from a cold one. They apply whether you shoot with a camera, with AI or with both.
Show the life the money is for.
People do not love banks. They love homes, weddings, a first car, a business that finally pays rent on time. A good bank film spends most of its time there and lets the bank arrive at the end, quietly.
Use light like a cinematographer would.
Cold films are often lit like offices: flat, blue, even. Warm films use late sun, practical lamps, a window. AI production makes this easy to control, which is one reason we push hard on light in every scene.
Write each language from scratch.
An Arabic version that is a word-for-word copy of the English one usually sounds stiff. Building the campaign in English and Arabic from the start lets each version sound like it was written by someone who grew up speaking it.
Make the vertical cut feel like it belongs on a phone.
Most people will meet a bank's campaign on their phone first. A vertical cut that looks like an afterthought tells the viewer the bank was thinking about the TV slot and not about them.
Gulf banks are under more pressure to feel human than ever.
Banking in the GCC is going digital fast. Customers open accounts on apps, compare offers in seconds and expect the same ease they get from a delivery app. When the product moves to a phone screen, the brand has fewer chances to make an impression in person. Film becomes the branch.
That is why we think the next few years of financial advertising in the region will reward banks that look premium and feel close. The tools to do it are here. Our AI-Infused Production team builds the images, and our post-production team makes sure every cut, grade and language version feels finished.
Frequently asked questions
Was the Bank of Muscat campaign made entirely with AI?
Yes. We handled the complete AI production for the campaign with BPG, and the visuals were fully AI produced, in vertical and horizontal formats.
Can a regulated brand like a bank use AI-produced visuals?
Yes, as long as the visuals set the mood and never make false claims about rates, results or real customers. The usual advertising rules still apply.
Which languages did the campaign run in?
English and Arabic, so the bank could reach its full customer base in Oman.
How do I start a financial brand video project with iklipse?
Tell us the audience, the formats and the languages you need. Reach us through our contact page.
Sources: AGBI, Oxford Business Group, Forbes Middle East, iklipse case studies.
