A Heritage Malta advert aired on TVM before the World Cup games to promote a prestigious exhibition at the archaeology museum was pulled off air after it was lambasted as “mediocre” by viewers.
The advert, entitled Oil lamp: giving a future to our past, shows two actors pretending to be Roman nobility lying down on couches half naked as they are massaged by women.
One of them flicks his hand commanding the woman to keep on massaging while they bet – in faux Latin – on World Cup results.
The scribe has to stop jotting down the bets when the oil lamp goes out, and on cue, one ‘Roman’ barks orders at a messenger to get “another oil lamp” from the museum.
A Heritage Malta source confirmed last night that the advert was pulled off air “for the time being”, as there had been no intention to create controversy. Neither is it available on the internet any longer.
The aim of the advert was to promote the exhibition, Great History of a Small Island Nation through 100 Objects, which is on show till next February at the National Museum of Archaeology in Republic Street, Valletta.
The acting, sound and editing was harshly criticised on social media and on blogs as “banal” and “a complete let down”.
Alan Fenech, who is in charge of marketing at Heritage Malta, said: “We wanted to promote the exhibition and we wanted to do it differently, something relevant to the audience of the World Cup.”
The advert was the brainchild of Heritage Malta’s marketing section and was scripted, cast and directed by Mr Fenech himself.
Until early afternoon, the advert could still be seen on social media and initially Heritage Malta said the advert will keep on airing it until the end of the World Cup. Unaware of the uproar on social media, Mr Fenech said: “No, actually we’re getting positive feedback. We’ll know soon whether more people are going to the exhibition [as a result of this advert].”
The positive feedback, he said, came mostly from the actors who took part in the advert, from people who recognised the actors, and from people working at Heritage Malta. It was filmed by Citadel Video Communications with whom Heritage Malta has an ongoing barter agreement .
The advert was the second in a series of three spots by Heritage Malta aired just before the football matches. The first had ‘Napoleon’ and ‘De Valette’ exchanging ‘Panini’ stickers: instead of footballers, there are exchanging pictures of items on display at the exhibition.
“The concept of the third one will revolve around a penalty shoot out,” said Mr Fenech, although he would not divulge further details.
Heavyweight author Manuel Mifsud criticised the advert, telling Times of Malta that Heritage Malta ought to be the yardstick for standards: “Sadly this advert gives a bad name to Heritage Malta and to the exhibition.”
“Of course there are adverts on local television which are even worse than this but coming from Heritage Malta this was a great disappointment: the sound, the script, the actors... it was atrocious, mediocre,” he said.
“This is the same Heritage Malta who last week did the commendable act of buying Antonio Sciortino’s Speed – it’s paradoxical.”
He had to watch it three times, he said, to realise that it was a promotion for the exhibition which explores the history of Malta from its geological formation, 35 million years ago, to the more recent EU accession through 100 objects.
Other viewers told Times of Malta that initially they thought it was a spoof.
Culture journalist David Schembri said that using humour to advertise an exhibition is “a good idea” to make culture appear “more accessible to the public” however, this was “poorly thought-out, poorly scripted and poorly executed”.
“I’m sure it must have seemed very funny at the office when they first thought of it. Unfortunately, the final product was not up to scratch, particularly given the pool of technical and human resources available today.”