Game for Action

On March 5, 2007, MBC launched MBC Action, a new channel packed with programmes targeted at young Arab males. Unlike its other channels, which sport a more traditional look, MBC Action is radically different in terms of its branding, logo, idents and promos.

"We looked at what was broadcast in the region and saw that there was no dedicated channel for young Arab males and we wanted the whole channel to radiate a certain attitude," says promotions manager, Amin Sammakieh, who is also responsible for promoting MBC2, the Group's movie channel.

The big challenge for MBC's creative services team was to create graphics for the channel within a span of two months. "The hardest part was doing all of this within the desired timescales. We had a little over two months to do a ton of promos, stings and bumpers as well as several lengthy showreels used to pitch the channel to potential advertisers. Most other broadcasters would have taken six months to launch a comparative channel," says Sammakieh.

For one, it was important to come up with a theme that could run through the entire branding exercise for the channel. Action without violence was key. "The idea was to show action," says Rasha Saada, senior account manager with MBC's creative services department. "We needed to represent Action but without showing any violence. That is the approach we took - capturing the beauty of the action moment."

The team shot extensively in Berlin for this channel. "From a design point of view, everything was shot on 35mm. We were looking for specific locations that were not available in Dubai. The location had to have an earthen feel to it while it also had to match our budget. We finally settled for Berlin," explains Saada, who adds that this is also the only channel in the MBC group that employs graphics extensively. "Even the packaging is all shot. We produced it, and directed it completely in house. We shot the explosions, the fire, the motorbike ... everything ... but in slow motion."

The idea to capture the action in slow motion came partly from MBC's senior art director, Alexander Grinke. "Action is always fast, so I wanted to keep everything with regards to the packaging - the trailers, the promotions, the idents, fonts, cuts and trailers and all related branding in slow motion."

Perhaps one of the biggest challenges the team faced was the logo itself. MBC's corporate logo did not lend itself well to action, says Saada. "This was the first time we were permitted to touch the MBC lettering of the corporate. If we kept it as it was, it would have looked rather forced and MBC and Action would have sat as two separate logos. Once we had the permission to tinker with the original, the rest was easy. The logo now looks in perfect harmony with the channel," she explains.

It was also important for the team to give the channel a style and flavour that was distinctly different from MBC2. "I've tried to differentiate the style of promotions in MBC 2 and Action in terms of the way we cut things and the way we approach the films," says Sammakieh, who is also promotions manager for MBC2. "Most of the movies have been shown on MBC 2 before. We also have an action movie slot on MBC 2 on Wednesday so it was very important that we approach the promotions styles slightly differently. We did this by giving MBC Action a purely visualistic feel. In MBC 2, for instance, we used to script a brief about each movie while in Action, we didn't feel the need for it. We felt that the action would speak for itself. Our audience is very visual so we believe that they appreciate visually-attractive promotions as opposed to some of the promos in our other channels that have a lot of sound bytes in them," adds Sammakieh.

Even the approach in terms of music is different. MBC Action is more rock and heavy metal based while MBC 2 is more trance music, says Sammakieh.

A look at the channel shows that the team has succeeded in giving it a flavour that differs from the rest of the channels in the group. One solution that helped speed up the team's creative efforts was the Quantel eQ system. Creating so many visuals within such a short time meant that MBC's creative department would have to rely on the workflow, featureset and stability of their graphics and editing systems.

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