The best telecom advertising in the Middle East stopped selling speeds and started telling stories about people. Two films show it clearly: du's Love It, a song about everything young footballers go through, and CST's The Hand, a thank-you letter to the human hand. Both were written by Ghazy, co-founder and creative director of iklipse, through &That French Guy, the agency's creative arm.
We are iklipse, a creative and AI production agency working across the GCC, Egypt, the US and Europe. Telecom and tech clients often arrive with a spec sheet. These two films show what you can make when you put the spec sheet down.
Network brands all sell the same thing, so the story has to be different.
Every operator has fast data, wide coverage and a shiny app. Customers know that. When everyone claims the best network, the claim stops meaning anything, and the brand that people remember is the one that made them feel something.
That is harder for telecom and tech than for food or fashion. The product is invisible. You cannot film a signal. So the work has to find a human story that the brand can honestly stand behind.
du turned a football programme into a song about pain and love.
du has backed youth football in the UAE for years. Its du Football Champions programme started around 2015 as a grassroots search for young talent, and in 2016 LaLiga opened its first High Performance Centre in Dubai to train the players it found.
Love It was made for du Football Champions with LaLiga. It is a song about everything a young footballer puts up with, and why you would do it anyway. The lyrics list the cost: ice-cold showers, long training hours, 5 a.m. drills, a broken nose on a wet, windy Tuesday night. On screen, boys come off the pitch bloodied, limp on crutches and run alone in the dark. Then the word LOVE fills the frame.
It ends on an offer: "It takes love to become a legend. And we'd love to make you one."
Ghazy did the creative and the treatment and wrote the lyrics. He sang the demo too, though the film uses another singer. Good People produced it, with Maged Nassar directing.
Why it works.
The film never mentions a data plan. It earns du the right to talk to young players by being honest about how hard the game is. A teenager who has had a 5 a.m. drill will recognise every line.
CST thanked the human hand, and made a regulator feel warm.
CST is Saudi Arabia's Communications, Space and Technology Commission. It was called the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) until late 2022, when a cabinet decree renamed it and moved space regulation under its roof. A regulator is about as far from a lovable brand as you can get.
The Hand opens on a palm in a shaft of light and a voice: "This is the human hand." Then the hand gets its thanks, one moment in history at a time. Shakespeare holds a feather pen, Ibn Rushd writes, Magellan sails out of sight of shore and a boxer floats like a butterfly. At the end the voice turns to the viewer and asks what a connected hand could do today.
The idea, the treatment, the script and that voice all came from Ghazy, through &That French Guy.
Why it works.
Connectivity is abstract. Hands are not. By telling the story of human progress through the hand, the film makes a connected future feel like the next chapter of something people already understand. It also puts an Arab thinker, Ibn Rushd, alongside Shakespeare and Magellan, which matters to a Saudi audience.
Here is what any telecom or tech brand can take from these two films.
- Find the human cost or the human gain. du showed what young players give up. CST showed what hands have made. Both are about people, with the brand standing behind them.
- Let a voice carry it. A song in one, a narrator in the other. A single strong voice holds a film together better than a list of features.
- Be specific. "A broken nose on a wet, windy Tuesday night" beats "hard work" every time.
- Keep the offer short and late. Both films save the brand line for the end, and it lands because the film has earned it.
Our post-production team cuts and versions films like these for TV, cinema and social, and our Brand Experiences team helps tech brands find the story behind the product. If music is part of your brief, our post on music in advertising covers another song-led film.
Frequently asked questions
Who made du's Love It and CST's The Hand?
Ghazy, co-founder and creative director of iklipse, wrote both through &That French Guy. Love It was produced by Good People and directed by Maged Nassar.
What is CST?
The Communications, Space and Technology Commission, Saudi Arabia's telecom and tech regulator, renamed from CITC in 2022.
Can a telecom ad work without talking about the network?
Yes, if the story is one the brand can honestly stand behind, like du's long-running support for youth football.
How do I work with iklipse on a telecom campaign?
Send us your brief, even if it is only a spec sheet. Start at our contact page.
Sources: LaLiga, Khaleej Times, Gulf News, Communications, Space and Technology Commission, iklipse case studies.
