Last year, I blogged about OCBC Ang Pows and I think I will be remiss if I don’t follow up on this year’s batch of ang pows I received.
The good news is, OCBC did not disappoint, although it wasn’t quite as impressive as in year 2008. And there were some with interesting ideas with other red packets, but that I thought didn’t quite work.
Again, OCBC continued with their series of 4 ang pow designs. They were connected with a floral theme, but each was independent. They were nice, but not as fun as in the previous years when they combined to make a bigger motif.
But what I really enjoyed was discovering they have a super sized ang pow. Here is the large version of last year’s design against the regular sized ang pows of 2009.
You buy these pre-packed in various values. Like $200 worth of notes and regular sized ang pows. And it all comes packaged in a big ang pow. I thought that was loads of fun and really convenient.
My cousin commented that she didn’t like the small ang pows any longer because the plastic content in Singapore currency makes it hard to fold. You can see these from my already-stuffed bloated ang pows.
However, I think it’s just a weak excuse for poor folding technique. Look at how I’ve managed to squeeze filled ang pows back into the little plastic bags containing empty packets. Indeed, I’ve stuffed in more than 10 in a bag!
A friend passed me her collection of ang pows. Some were in landscape orientation. Which makes it easy to put in money without folding. However, with this orientation, designs have to change and the samples I got were rather traditional. But I’d say something traditional, in good taste as the Tokio Marine one, is way better than some ugly ones I received.
In general, I discovered that any ang pow, containing logos on the front, pictures of products and other non-New Year items, make for crappy ang pows. Also, I’m not hot on ang pows with the animal of the year on them. You have to keep them a whole 12 years before you can use them again. You can make ’em cute as you can, it doesn’t work for me.
Nijumaru and Nuskin ang pows have pictures of their product on them. The Nuskin one is particularly offensive to my eyes because that gold blob is supposed to represent one of their products. If you can’t draw your prooduct at least, have the decency to print a 4C ang pow, like the Nijumaru one.
To further illustrate how using ang pows as a product advertisement fails, is another OCBC sample. Here, a large ang pow that sells their Mighty Savers product. This is to attract parents to start accounts for kids at OCBC and create brand loyalty early on. Did I say “yuck!” loud enough?
Companies should realise that splashing a logo right on the front doesn’t make the company who gave it more memorable. And chucking in more elements – logo, picture, product, text – makes it even less successful.
Some ang pows encouraged recycling. (Recycling notice highlighted below) But really, if you want me to recycle an ang pow, you gotta make me so happy with the design that I’ll be happy to re-use it and pass it on to someone else. With this kind of design, you want it destroyed and eliminated from existence. Don’t forget to take out the cash first, though.
DBS. Oh boy. What is wrong with DBS? They have screwed up the branding of POSB by wanting to assume it under the DBS name. Now, they want to re-brand POSB to stand on its own. In the first place, they shouldn’t have decided to get rid of the POSB brand. The POSB website goes to DBS (and this hasn’t been fixed) The new POSB logo colours suck. And the DBS ang pow? It sucks too. I’ve seen this ang pow in previous years, and either someone’s still using them, or DBS hasn’t changed their design.
I was once a client of four banks. OCBC, UOB, POSB and DBS. I dropped both UOB and DBS. I feel no real brand loyalty to UOB. I can truly say I intensly dislike DBS. I think OCBC is old fashioned. And I love POSB only because it was my first bank account. Even up till I was 28, I was still using my thumbprint to withdraw money at the bank. But DBS has really tainted so much of the branding of POSB, I’m so near cutting my ties with POSB. It’s really true. One bad apple is all it takes.
Which brings me to POSB’s ang pow. This is what I call a politically correct ang pow, along with product placement. There’s the squirrel for the Squirrel Savers programme, you have your tourist promotion icons – Changi Airport Control Tower, HDB flats, flatted factories, and then you have older generation interacting harmoniously with young generation – our Asian values. It’s got so many themes, you get confused what the ang pow is trying to say.
I also got a packet from Frasers Centrepoint Malls which can be torn and folded into a paper box to hold all the peanut and kwaji shells as you snack your way through New Year visits with cousins and family, avoiding all conversations starting with “Wah so fat already” or “Still not married ah?” or “when are you going to get a real job?”
Cute box idea, but I don’t think that really works. I mean if you get one of these ang pows, are you going to tear it open, pocket the contents, right in front of the person who gave it to you and proceed making the box and snacking to avoid more conversation other than the requisite “Happy New Year, thank you for the ang pow”? And if like me, you wait till after five days to open your ang pow, you might have to wait till next year’s visitations to use the box.
While the instructions on how to fold the box were clear, the fold lines were inaccurate which doesn’t help origami-challenged and craft-challenged people like me. But, it was nice to see that when the box was completed, the Chinese words of “spring”, “luck” and of course, the company logo (once discreetly placed at the back) were now fully visible.
Well, so that’s it. 2009 ang pow analysis is over.
Here’s hoping 2010, a time of anticipated despair, further economic meltdowns, global production inertia, global recessions will not mean crappy design. If artistic endeavours fail the way banks and insurance companies have, then there is indeed no hope for us.