Quaker has a new ad which tries to please everyone

So Quaker has a new ad. Well, to quote queen of shade Aretha Franklin, when asked about Taylor Swift, she said "she has beautiful gowns". So, in the same analogy, the song accompanying the film is really nice. The rest? The film is too bloated in time, has a million ideas at once, is supposedly constructed around the comcept that every time of the day has its recipe (but we learn this at the end having endured 90 seconds of platitudes), but honestly, the way everything is crammed hodge-podge, thrown into different angles, with veiled women here and there (you know, to make it a pan-Arab campaign), and - there you have it - with a full cookbook worth of things, and animated oats exploding at every scene, not to mention the annoying way how every scene leads to another one, and all of the 19,578 ways you can actually serve oats (interesting, Quaker omitted oats from their name this being said). 

Seriously I couldn't wait for the film to finish. Even with a "nice song"/"beautiful gowns" leading the very, very long ad. This is a case of trying to please everyone - and we know how this goes.

See the ad here.

How can you commemorate a war when another war is happening

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly - Fargo is the brand of the Ain el Roumaneh bus - the above is an exhibition I held for the 33rd commemoration of the war in 2015

Today is the commemoration of the official start of the 1975-1990 war. I say official because honestly the country was on a verge of eruption since time immemorial. But I digress. My problem is elsewhere: How can we commemorate the past when the present is still perpetuating it. Or to quote William Faulkner, "The past is never dead. It's not even past" - especially in a Lebanon divided on fictional and real faultlines.

And today is Easter Monday for the Orthodox Christians, so a supposedly holiday. A holiday from what I know not. And the original Ain El Roumaneh bus was according to legend, sold and eventually rotting somewhere in the south. But this is a detail, our collective memory is still alive and kicking. Our war reflexes too.
I already said this story before. but I am repeating it. The context is still too fresh.
Published October 1rst, 2013:
War is not over. It's a fact. It will never be. Today, in a slip of a tongue my mother said "in case I have to flee" - an awkward small sentence that could have gone unnoticed. But she said it, did not pay attention to it, and went on. But for me there was a sudden freeze frame. The exact word she said was "ehrob" - a word which could be interpreted as "run away", "flee", "save myself".
There she was, a woman secure financially, surrounded by her family in more ways than one, whose tasks have been brought down to a minimum which keeps her mentally and physically active without anything that might overburden her old age. And - subconsciously - she is still stuck in a loop. A loop that should have been finished since 1990 when the "Lebanese civil war" ended.
My first reflex was one of upset - where was she going to run flee? why would she?... And frankly, there was this cynic dismissal, whereas I did not articulate it, I surely thought it. But as I composed myself, I sat there thinking about it. In many ways, she is just a specimen of a generation. They're the ones who explored the Automatique cafe (Idriss) in downtown Beirut, the heyday of the supposed "Paris of the Orient" (what a fallacy!) and they are the ones who have had the dream of normalcy shattered - even if the war had been brewing for a long time under the champagne bubbles of the Phoenicia Hotel before it eventually exploded in 1975.
What struck me the most, was how similar she and I are. What I first dismissed as an outmoded reflex, soon dawned on me how ingrained it is in all of us. I was born on the onset of the war, and so this Capharnaum was all I knew. It was fun in a macabre way, but it was also the only paradigm and frame of reference. Not only this, in 2006, I got stuck in the US during the war which had erupted in my absence. A trip that was supposed to last two weeks ended up being two months long.
And it was those war reflexes that saved me. Whereas everyone around me was panicking as to these swift transitions, I was already doing mental checklists - something you have to do in times of war - organizing things so very efficiently and taking all emotional components out the equation. Naturally, it's when the anomaly of such situations subsides that you feel the full blow and when the psychological aftermath starts. But when you are still in your adrenalin rush, it all feels so peaceful, so normal dare I say.
And now I realize why my travel carry on luggage is almost set to go despite the fact that it has been a while since I traveled. In that luggage I keep - for reasons obscure to myself until now - a minimum survival kit: Anything from a good pair of jeans, to a change of shirts and socks, some cash and even a travel nail kit.
After all... What if I have to "ehrob" myself?

Some teasing in black and yellow

Source

Interesting. Teasing, again. I thought this would be relegated to the distant past but seems not. In black and yellow, the billboards are - literally - bursting with copy. Copy larger than life. "This billboard is too small for us" (also available in "board" format), "Wiiiiiiiiiiiider experience", "Beyond this space", "upgrade/enhance/level up/raise your experience", "Antelias make room" - the last one is actually a clearer pointer because it seems a certain supermarket is having a new branch in the area (Spinneys here's looking at you). In other news, the 80s called and want their teaser/revealer ads back.

Anamorphic billboards hit Lebanon

Photo credit Jad Al Masri

So it took a while but here we are. Anamorphic (that's 3D) billboards hit Lebanon, and whereas still not "branded" Promomedia is showing the potential of what they can do with a bottle and a cat. Apparently there are a few of them to go around - Spinney's Achrafieh and Verdun - so this is becoming something to watch out for. Interesting, what's with everything going on, war and all, we eventually get a (relatively) new technology for advertising.

If we Lebanese learned anything, it's that life goes on.

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly based on the logo of the series Life Goes On

We as Lebanese have had very tough lessons - please do not say the R word (resilience). It's more like stubbornness and stupidity. But here we are, I ordered a new blazer online - and, superstition I know, my late mother told me not to wear something for the first time on a funeral, so I wore something else for our neighbor's funeral and saved the new blazer for Easter. Also the plumber just came and fixed and changed what needed to be fixing and changing. 

Why am I saying this?

Because we are in a country at war. A country with a winter that stretched long enough. In a country where news follows you even if you avoid it. In a country where little or nothing makes sense. Still, a new blazer, fixing plumbing things, going to see my ophthalmologist, doing blood tests, my glasses broke so I need a new pair, and so on and so forth, as if everything is "normal" when everything is not. But sure enough, like any entrepreneur will tell you over on Linkedin (heaven help us), there are no ideal circumstances, there is no perfect time, there is no stars aligning, you jump in and hope for the best.

That Ralph Lauren blazer - which mind you was so cool it impressed my young niece in the US when I sent her the Easter photos - was not going to wait forever especially that my size is, well, difficult (short, skinny with weird length of the arms). The clogged washbasin was not going to unclog itself. The cover of the WC which decided to crack was not fixing itself.

And so here we are, now it is raining again (insert Supertramp song here). And I am coordinating the rest of the weekly appointments. Life, you know has a tendency to go on.

Either you are on board, or you are in the way.

Anemoia - Nostalgia for a Lebanon that never existed

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly - part of the collective memory as a bridge to national identity series

I am sorry to burst the bubble, especially when everyone is hyping things up. When everyone seems to be suffering from "anemoia" - literally, a nostalgia for something that did not exist. First the fallacy: Lebanon was the Switzerland of the Middle East, or Beirut was the Paris of the Middle East. Was it correct? Yes, but barely. We got unlucky as opposed to lucky.

Beirut began as a "ville-escale" - meaning the city where planes land for 48 hours before jetting back. Not as it is known today where the whole landing-take off happens in less than an hour. To our bad luck, we had the Phoenicia, the Palm Beach hotel, the Kit Kat nightclub, the Caves du Roy, the Venus high end cabaret and the rest of the paraphernalia of entertainment. That our weather allowed to "ski and swim in the same day" only made it worse.

To be clear, the "age d'or" (golden age) of Lebanon only lasted a very short while. That we had a very stylish president and first lady (namely Kamil and Zalfa Chamoun) did not arrange anything, but I digress. So, where' my gripe?

My problem is that we are reminiscent of a Lebanon that never existed. One that no even our parents benefited from. Why? Because what is known as the golden age only benefited a very small buffer elite which was able to enjoy the benefits, leaving a middle class which was being formed, and in the words of a former Communist party commander interviewed for a documentary "I did not want to participate in the whole thing, all I wanted was a cab fair to just look at it from a distance." This alone should tell you how many people were literally marginalized and forgotten.

Also, the Shiites in Lebanon are known as "المحرومين" (the deprived) because the state never looked their way, and their own politicians/lords did not even try to help their own. In a famous (and sad anecdote) it seems people gathered their elders and went to Ahmed Al-Assaad (father of former head of the parliament Kamel Al-Assaad) to ask him for schools in the region for their regions, and he answered with "Kamel is learning on your behalf".

I am saying this today, because the fallacy we face too deep, the nostalgia for something that never existed is too strong, and the idealized version of a fairy tale is simply not true, and never was.

Blanchor - current news, April Fools, and Easter all in one go for Cocktail Lahoud!

Any questions? Because this is how you roll current news, April Fools, and Easter all in one perfect ad. First the background - and this I have explained prior - "maamoul" the traditional Easter cookie means "done with" or "done to" in Arabic, the traditional flavors include dates, walnuts or pistachios. So? How about an avocado maamoul from Cocktail Lahoud? Because - yes, you guessed it - April Fools! And a pre-Easter ad to boot and - wait for it - the headline goes "this year, what is "done to" is us is as if it was a lie" (darn it, in Arabic it is ever funnier with maamoul being a double-entendre). So here we are, several ads all rolled into one. And a perfect one at that from Blanchor for Cocktail Lahoud.

IKEA walked so that Maliks could run

Maliks is at it again, but oddly with a lovely jab - one that compares its own merchandise to the luxury house's insanely expensive alternatives. Lovely indeed, except, IKEA was there for a long time before Maliks did it. The proof is always in the pudding, and when IKEA joked about its own Frakta bag compared to the Balenciaga (here), or about its own towel as apposed to the Towel skirt, that's a bit old news at this point. But, still, props for Maliks for leaving behind his silly riddles. Also, never forget, design has humble origins (here).

TOEFL does 80s with a bang

TOEFL just got itself a new ad and an official song to boot, from what I heard this is a local production to go international as the song will become some sort of official TOEFL official hymn. Also there seems more ads in the drawer still not released yet all of them based on - you're not going to believe this - neuroscience. You have to give it out to them - the atmosphere is infectious, the dance moves quirky, the song catchy, and the primary colors are are either Celine this year or plain simple 80s galore. At 90 seconds the ad is not short, but it does hold one's attention enough to do through it all with the youth rotating dance moves and letting each other shine. Cast is very credible mind you so props to them finding this many variety. See the ad here.

And for Mother's Day, Joefish introduces Momfish

To hell with ad agencies, mothers could do it - and do it better. Come to think about it Joefish has a point, mother could predict things being two steps ahead, protect children at all costs, always keeping relationships alive, able to give brutal ideas and feedbacks, are able to manage accounts tightly, for them deadlines are strict and abided by, and carefully curate info that must go out. and they get no retainers, no breaks, and are irreplaceable, because indeed, they are mother. Well, that's one multitasking agency staff all boiled into one!

Parazar excels and Alfa deflates for the same Mother's Day creative concept

Alfa has issued its Mother's Day ad - the concept is "el denye emm" - an Arabic idiom that "life is a mother" (it teaches you, takes care of you etc...). See the ad here. OK, you did not hear it from me but I detected a very strong AI feel here, also, again - speculation your honor - but the ad seems like a down-low copy of the iconic Nido "kebro el wlad" ad (here). If not so I am betting my neck it was on their mood board.

In comes Parazar, with interestingly the same backbone "el denye emm" - listen, no, this is not one of my #CompareandContrast posts where brands end up imitating each other because well, it is only normal for the idea to float in different minds for the same occasion. The difference? ParAzar came with their arsenal of beautifully and professionally shot marriages and events. Add to this a kick-ass copy which drives the message home without being pinch-me-till-I-cry, and you have a dignified and well-put ad which expresses its message and lets you connect the dots. See the ad (here).

Mink goes on a double whammy for Mother's Day

Mink is back at what it does best. Distilling complex elements into easy and creative advertising. This time for Mother's Day it went with Master (using nuts and not potato chips) and Ksara (one of Lebanon's finest wines). The result? Two well done and put together ads which truly say a lot about mother's - funnily these are real slices of life that Mink managed to portray. Good to know Mink still kicks.

Beirut Beer - a great one for Mother's Day

Beirut Beer, yes, one that has nothing to do with Almaza, and they excel in it. "El batn besten" - a local phrase that means "the womb is a garden" whereby mothers give birth to different children. And yes, what do you know? Beirut Beer holds too many different variants of its products. Smart, understated, but very well done. A winner indeed.

Beytech Mother's Day, interesting concept but questionable execution.

Beytech has a new Mother's Day campaign, "wrong gift, big risk". A Dyson surrounded by sharks, a snake on top of a washing machine and a crocodile swallowing an iron. Loved the concepts. Or at least the whole creative idea to be honest - the executions left me a bit puzzled. Maybe I should post an old Barclay's ad to show the difference in terms of execution:

The snake is so well woven inside the ad one can totally understand the reference in question. This being said, as I mentioned, I do understand where Beytech came from creatively. 

Joefish vs The Lab #compareandconstrast

So this is suspicious. Joefish published a Eid greeting stemming from the topic du jour - no not the war but rather AI. A nice one about prompts and moons (obviously because it is Eid). 4 hours later The Lab published a Eid greeting stemming from the topic du jour - no not the war but rather AI. A nice one about prompts and moons (obviously because it is Eid). Wait - something is deeply fishy or joefishy here. Either The Lab has no idea or honestly, they did have an idea - or rather someone else's idea. I am not saying they did, I am not saying they didn't - compare and contrast yourself.

And now Eid is upon us, sadly

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly based on the Al Moutanabi poem

And now Eid is here, yes, supposedly scheduled for tomorrow but the day itself is irrelevant. The Gazza scenario is being applied to south Lebanon and obviously, the voices that were offended about the situation there are nowhere to be found (please note, not that these voices did anything for Gazza so it's not like we are missing much anyhow). 

And now Eid is here, to mark the end of Ramadan with people in small tents, or sleeping on thin mattresses, thankfully donations are still trickling in but somehow all this seems not to exist to the powers that be. I mean politicians, specifically Muslim politicians, or to be honest Shiite politicians - these people vote for them. And still, they show up, on the daily, in the news, well-dressed in suits and ties - they "condemn" what is condemnable, as if condemning is going to fend off the rain from the tents.

I am sure, for the optics, there will be maamoul cookies distributed to them tomorrow. But maamoul - the same sweet for Eid and Easter - is not going to heal or fix anything. Is there a fatigue settling in? You bet. We did this before, in 2024, and I said before - now what do we do? (here). I know I should not be saying this, among the goodwill whereby people are still finding ways and things to donate, but there are also people trying to make a buck out of this. Trying to rent rooms at exorbitant prices knowing the refugees have no power to negotiate. Not that it did not happen before, throughout the different wars Lebanon faced since 1975, people were trying to do that for a long time.

I know this seems like condemning but we have a long history in this - During the Siege of Tyre in 332 BC, the Phoenician city-states of Sidon, Byblos, and Arvad (Aradus) gave their ships to Alexander the Great to attack their rival city-state, Tyre. This in itself should be a good reminder.

I truly worry about us as a country, geographically. The odds seem to be stacked against us this time.

About the displaced, again.

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly as part of his collective memory series

Remember Farid Boustany? (here) Well, here's the idea - a Chouf district MP had his ads on the Jounieh highway in Kesserwan. Which does not make sense. Except it does. You see when the Mountain war happened - one of the many sub wars of the Lebanese war (here) there were many displaced people/families who populated the Kesserwan region. And despite repatriations and people rebuilding houses here, in the end, they remained in Kesserwan and bought properties here. 

Which brings us to the refugees. One of the things about people in the south is how attached they are to their land. As soon as hostilities end people go back in droves (here). Now the major question is - what is there to go back to? Who will go back? If you look at maps, this is the same carbon copy of the Gaza scenario. Do note, I am not trying to be a third rate expert in geopolitics am just trying to read things as is.

Interestingly, and to draw a parallel with the Syrians, many - as in the hundreds of thousands - have gone back to their country. Or to be more specific, we are almost back to the pre-Syrian war phase (almost, again): the men remain here and families go back to Syria. Sure, just take my village, many women and children remain here, but on the whole the pressure has eased considerably. 

Now, not to stir the pot or anything, but the people who fled the Chouf at the time were Christians - specifically Maronites - who came to other Maronite areas (Kesserwan as an example). The people who got displaced from the south are by and large Shiites. Which "area" will take them in remains to be seen. Also, and again not to stir the pot, I do live in a Maronite village myself but now the sight of a veiled woman or rented houses with blackened windows is also nothing new.

I am not even sure if this is a sign of progress or pragmatism. The woman who - during the war - was a staunch supporter of the extreme right militia of the Lebanese Forces has rented her downstairs apartment to a Syrian family. And yes, they are Muslim. So now what? To be honest I have no idea what this means or where this is leading us to.

Exotica, Mother's Day (just don't call it a war)

Exotica just gave us this lovely ad. "My safe space" - it is supposed to be an ad for Mother's Day - interestingly it does not feature a mother but rather a grandmother with a grandchild. So basically they skipped a generation. But it is the line that makes everything in perspective "my safe place" because yes, it is the idea of a grandmother than brings safety to children, the place where there are no rules, where candies are in abundance - and so it warmth. Obviously this is a wink to the ongoing war currently in Lebanon and all the upheavals we are all experiencing - which make it a double or more when it comes to children. So yes, it is about war, and no, you don't get to say it plainly. Smart move.

Concerning the "Jours tranquilles a Beyrouth"...

Artwork based on the cover of the book "Jours tranquilles a Beyrouth"

Has the war ended? Is it about to end? Are we closer to a peace or peace deal? Depending whom you ask. You get different answers within the same nation (trying to remain vague....). And now what? Now we are as always stuck in the middle. I have previously wrote about this (here):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).

So, today I was asking a friend about Beirut. "Hey, what's in like in Beirut these days?" his answer - you wouldn't believe - "windy at night". No, he did not say anything about bombed hotel rooms, about planes hovering day and night, about people being in the streets or not, about the refugees on the Corniche, no, all of this did not come to his mind. What did come was "windy at night".

And I don't blame him mind you. I mean one tries to find normalcy in the most outrageous situations, which obviously reminds of the book by Nathalie Bontems and David Hury published in 2009 (here), about the "tranquil days in Beirut". Where everything and everything gets interwoven. And yes, about my own Beirut Maykem-ek (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII), where everything intermingles with no logic or chronology or reason. I once met one of NY's hottest book agents, and out of the tens and tens of people who showed him their work, he got interested in mine. He just said "give me a beginning, middle and end and I will buy this" to which I replied "this is Beirut, there is no beginning or middle or end" and left the table to the astonishment of everyone.

Seattle Opera creates a real-time ad following Timothee Chalamet backlash

During a CNN/Variety video conversation with Matthew McConaughey, which was recorded on 24 February, Thimotee Chalamet managed to utter: “I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera,” to McCaunaughey who was his Interstellar co-star. “Things where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive, even though no one cares about this any more.’” Cue. Enormous backlash.

First and foremost, the voting window for the Oscars - Chalamet is nominated for his role in Marty Supreme - has finished. So no, it will not affect his statuette chances. But, apart from Chalamet supporting high-art such as reality television (cough, ahem) via his partner Kylie Jenner whom he thanked at the Critics Choice Awards, the words - and keep in mind that Will Smith still won (with a standing ovation no less) at the Oscars literally minutes after slapping Oscars presenter Chris Rock - do not have any weight once vote is cast.

Yet, the entertainment world is fickle and has a short memory so no, I am not worried about Chalamet. But, if all this background serves anything it is because The Seattle Opera has announced a Timothée Chalamet discount code for upcoming performances of “Carmen.” The company announced the news via social media stating, “All we’ve got to say is… use promo code TIMOTHEE to save 14% off select seats for Carmen, through this weekend only. Timmy, you’re welcome to use it too 💃 See you at the opera!”

Well, come on, this perfectly summed up the moment and did a super smart activation milking the event to its highest potential all while throwing a total dig.

Side note: If you want to see a real-time advertising, please go back to this genius move from the late Jean-Claude Boulos when Bechir Gemayel was elected president in 1982 in Lebanon: