Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Advertising goes back slowly to OOH in Beirut

The Spinney's trolley
Hmmm ads are back slowly in town on billboards. Whereas said billboards were covered with white paper in January and February, they appear now with several campaigns which advertised, not in full force, but not on a couple of billboards either. What is even more interesting is that the fact that the ads were mostly from fast food chains advertising fish-based menus for lent (without using the word as they skirt around the issue every year) but actually while reusing last year's creative ads. Obviously the creative input of their agencies was not needed this year. Or perhaps the cut-down budget was directed towards media buying. Just to be clear, this isn't business as usual yet, but a jump from the bleak October 2019 to February 2020 period which was total and complete crisis. Pictured above is the Spinney's trolley on Dbayeh (which was in the Guinness book of records) and which for decades was a Pepsi ad placement surrounded by white curtains waiting for the market to pick up again.