When one phrase “Blocks the door”

When Jordan Dubai Islamic Bank was launched about month ago, Jordan Advertising Blog mentioned it’s massive advertising and media campaign as being neat, stressing on heritage for a conservative bank. And what started swiftly as strong and powerful campaign, almost became a disaster for both the bank and Al-Madinah Advertising Agency (Publicis) which resulted in the ad being removed, and statements released by both the bank who blamed the agency Al-Madinah (Publicis) who in return admitted the mistake. (Note: today there was no sign of the campaign anywhere in newspapers or outdoor locations)

Press release by the advertising agency clarifying the mistake (Today: Al-Rai')

The cause of this controversy was a single phrase on an ornament inside a mosque, the intention of the message according to the statement was connecting quality with Arabic calligraphy, but the sentence included the phrase (علي ولي الله) which is related exclusively to the Shiite Muslims in a country most of it’s population are Sunni, thus raising questions in the local media about the bank’s relationships to Shiites, frankly, this is really silly even if those questions were true-which they apparently aren’t as the bank is known to be an Emirati investment.

Excluding the possibility this was intentional in the first place as a way to target Shiite Muslims living in Jordan into dealing with the bank (As it is expected for any business to try gaining the most possible number of potential customers), then this is just a blunder that both parties, the bank, and the agency, are to various extents responsible of:
The bank’s marketing department are to blame because they sign approvals on ads, endorse images and text messages, and that also includes looking thoroughly into image details, especially for such a sensitive topic that is related to religion.
The agency is very much responsible because they presented the controversial photo their client failed to notice, probably it was purchased as a stock image through the internet, but the real problem is; Clients hire advertising agencies because they claim to be the experts in media and communications, yet coming up with and presenting such an ad means one of two possibilities; Nobody knew what it meant! which is bad, or nobody looked into the details of the image that was presented! which is as bad.

But now how will (JDIB) react? Should they embark into PR quickly to overturn the negative karma that was pouring over the news media in the previous days before the negative coverage leaves it’s impact on the consumer’s awareness for a long time? Should they launch a counter advertising campaign to highlight the bond between Dubai and Jordan’s traditions or using messages with Hadith for example to distance themselves away of these claims?