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| Artworks by Tarek Chemaly |
Anyone who knows me knows I am totally not in favor of smoking (with a nicotine allergy to boot), still I can never deny that Marlboro and their timeless slogan "come to where the flavor is" played a vital role in the Lebanese war. Marlboro was a way to blend in, to kill the time, to socialize in shelters, to prove one's generosity (when there was shortages), to prove one's status and masculinity. In his book "Of Happiness and Ideas" Farid Chehab (one of the co-owners of the advertising agency which did the slogan in Arabic) details a hillarious story of how he got kidnapped as he went from one side of Beirut to the next for late Ibrahim Merachli to record the jingle and how his master selling technique delivered him eventually from the worst.
