Recently for Saudi Day (September 19) Heinz went brandless and colored itself with the colors of the Saudi flag. The aim was to express "our irrational act of love to join our Saudi consumers in celebrating the Kingdom with its rich culture, heritage, and unity,” according to Passant El Ghannam, Head of Marketing at Kraft Heinz MEA. I can already see the case presented to advertising awards - "we allowed consumers to scan QR codes to share their own messages of pride, we hired in situ calligraphers to personalize the bottles so as for consumers to keep one-of-a-kind mementos, and sales grew ..read more

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly So it's raining again. No, this was not the first all-cleansing autumn rain. But it is raining at the most inopportune moment. People are literally living on the streets. Sure - easy for me to say. I have a roof above my head and food on my table. I just gave some mattresses and wraps to a family that has been displaced twice - I said it before, even in the most generous act there is an element of selfishness (will I be rewarded by life, God, the afterlife, etc....). But honestly, at this point I am not even thinking that. I am truly thinking - I have a bed. I ..read more

UNDP is trying to combat fake (or unauthenticated) news. In a ad on double screens on Instagram UNDP went "count to ten before sharing an unauthenticated news" and "count to ten before believing au unauthenticated news". Obviously, with Lebanon having so many channels, radios, media each trying to propagate its own version of events, some of them happened, some of them not, it is only fair for the UNDP to go with this ad especially that many people now get their news from social media, where clicks and likes and eyeballs reign much higher than confirmed news - so speed goes above all, and d ..read more

Please note, I am not here to promote ideas, conspiracies, geopolitical theories or what not (by this I mean the one that is being paddled whereby Hassan Nasrallah and the Hizbollah leaders were sacrificial lambs in a major deal between US and Iran). All I am saying is, there is an ad that is doing the rounds straight from Iran that goes "Hizbollah is alive" with some beautiful Persian calligraphy and the photo of none other than (non-alive) former head of the Hizbollah. Interestingly, these were done, approved, hanged even before there was any confirmation about the fate of Nasrallah from a ..read more

In her brilliant book "Beirut fragments" author Jean Said Makdisi wrote about an anecdote whereby she saw her friend, in Hamra, all coiffed. The friend told her about her hairdresser who bought a generator and provided electricity to his shop and women were all getting their hair done. All bang in the middle of war-torn Beirut during the 1982 invasion (where no shred of electricity was present). But Beirut has always been the epitome of contradictions. Airstrikes you say? Yes, waiter please bring me some... And here we are, both PopUp Concepts and Pearl Brands (which among others sell Ralph ..read more

So people are not happy and for a reason. Happy, the discount supermarket, with a logo that has a smile built-in decided to invert the smile on an ad hooked onto one of its branches with the following line being inserted into a reel "hard days will be over, and the smile will come back". Remember that famous ad by Johnnie Walker? The one that was done in 2006 with the motto "keep walking" but the emblem walking following a broken bridge? (here) One was a masterpiece, the other a flop. The difference is timing. Johnnie Walker did their after the fait accompli, while Happy seem to be gaining fr ..read more

Well, back to school is no longer back to school. Considering the gravity of the current situation schools - those that opened anyhow - have switched to online learning so did universities. But hey, we are at a stage where any ad is worth talking about considering how far and few in between they are. Is the ad above earth-shattering? No not really. Believable? With a school bag labelled "pain au zaatar" (thyme bread), also not really. Is the gimmick in the copy interesting? Pack to school might as well pack it. And yet, when there are barely any ads this one sticks like a sore thumb. But sudd ..read more

La colombe de la paix - Pablo Picasso I know this is a long post name but could not stop myself. A certain local ad agency, no names but anyone versed in the advertising scene knows who it is, has - in a case sent to ad festivals on behalf of its client (a prominent local newspaper, again, no names, but come on the hints are too heavy!) - that, by doing a certain activation (which was also very questionable, as it was done prior by other newspapers including one in Turkey), they "saved democracy in Lebanon". Sure, ads presented to festivals and awards can include boastful claims, lik ..read more

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly (Originally written in 2010) Sometimes I feel like a childless mother, a long way from home, hiding into the church of the saint that does no miracles, praying for the cross-eyed god who’s not even worthy of a capital g, The all seeing, see no evil, the omnipresent, hear no evil, the omnipotent, do no evil: Not doing is an act in itself. Laissez-faire in the name of the cowardice – look at me when I speak to you. Avoidant personality and no decision is a decision in itself, just file everything under “natural disaster” or “le mal terrestre” – something that ne ..read more

And so here we are. Here we are. My friend said yesterday "chidd 7alak" (get a grip). The problem is that the war trauma went back to the surface with a vengeance. You can run from the war, but war catches you back. You can pretend normalcy as most of us do but the wound is still there. Some of us, nay, most of us, have no luxury to break down - we have responsibilities and lives to live and moral acts vis a vis people dependent on us. Of course, all this comes on the heels of the financial, political and economic breakdown since 2019, with covid on top, and all other factors compounding what ..read more