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Young Bahrainis are taking part in a television commercial hoping their acting skills will help inspire others to take-up the baton and reach for the stars in their chosen careers.
The 45-second promotion will be launched next month as part of Bahrain's labour fund Tamkeen's efforts to empower and encourage tomorrow's entrepreneurs and professionals.
The commercial will be aired on Bahrain TV and all cinemas across the island. It builds on the organisation's slogan and name - Tamkeen in Arabic means empower and enable - and sends a strong message to young people in Bahrain to work towards a prosperous future.
The central theme of the commercial shows different people from various walks of life catching what seems like a baton. But the batons - symbolic of opportunities - are actually different rungs of a ladder which leads to a brighter future.
Model Ali Jaffar Hassan is one of the young Bahrainis featured in the commercial grabbing the baton. He is an entrepreneur who has recently set up his company, Alfa Omega. "I got involved in Tamkeen's print advertising campaign last year. The reason I was keen to work in the commercial is because I am an ideal example of Tamkeen's target audience," said the 27-year-old resident of Janussan, who hopes to secure Tamkeen's assistance to develop his start-up business.
Although Ali's selection to feature in the commercial was based solely on camera appeal, he believes in Tamkeen's philosophy and felt that by inspiring others to work he is helping to take his country towards a brighter future.
"The entire cast of the commercial from school students, university graduates and professionals could one day potentially benefit from Tamkeen. Apart from being inspirational in the commercial these real life Bahrainis are actually Tamkeen's target audience," said Julia Rushton, account director at Gulf Marcom, Tamkeen's advertising agency.
Although there is no voice-over in the commercial, the stitching together of the scenes and the conclusion showing Tamkeen's familiar "ladder of success" theme puts the visuals in perspective and at the same time repeats the Tamkeen visual mantra of how Tamkeen enables individuals and companies to come together to achieve greater heights of excellence.
The commercial was conceptualised four months ago which set the ball rolling for production and completion of the project. It is filmed in various locations around the kingdom: Salmaniya Medical Complex, La Fontaine, Al Khawla Girls Secondary School, Busaiteen and Muharraq Football Stadium to name a few.
"Tamkeen is all about developing the workforce and empowering small and medium businesses. It's about making the private sector the engine of national economy by training and injecting qualified Bahrainis into different sectors of economy. That is why we have visual representation of various sectors like finance, health and real estate in the commercial," explained Hala Ahmed Sulaiman, marketing communications manager of Tamkeen.
"This TV commercial is not just a tool in the campaign but also an exciting demonstration of the talent available in Bahrain and among Bahrainis to fulfill new roles. We are using Bahraini models and production talent and the commercial is rooted in the local culture, making it easy to relate to and inspiring for Bahrainis," she added.
Keeping this vision in mind, Tamkeen was rebranded from its earlier title, Labour Fund. As much as Tamkeen is about empowerment it is also about Bahrainisation, to enable Bahrainis to find productive and sustainable careers. The organisation's next main focus will be to offer career counselling to young Bahrainis so that they will be able to choose careers according to market needs.
To shoot the commercial, a film crew from Serbia came to Bahrain with state-of-the-art high resolution digital equipment. "It is the first time that a 'Red One' camera has been brought to the island. This is the latest camera in film production and is used in Hollywood to shoot feature films," said Sanjay Kapoor, executive producer of Talking Pictures in Bahrain. "Since there is no dialogue we had to have slick technology to put out the message effectively," he added.
"It is a very interesting project and the script is extremely effective. I'd heard of Bahrain and was excited at the opportunity to work here. Throughout filming we didn't encounter any technical problems except for bad weather one day," said the Serbian director, Slobodan Milivojavic, talking exclusively to GulfWeekly.
Mr Milivojavic was on the island for a two-week stint with his three-man camera crew from Serbia.
