"Loulou"... "Oui, c'est moi"....
Rarely has an advertising reply become so iconic in Lebanon - and here I am speaking about the Loulou by Cacharel perfume (see the full ad here). As I was scanning some old Saudi ads, TV ads that is, I realized that the ad was severely cut (nothing of her chest or shoulders showed, neither of her full walking body - a total no no in Saudi advertising), but what struck me that the very brief ad has an Arabized logo of the perfume (please note since the original logo was too low resolution, and that it was heavily watermarked, I had to recreate it digitally basing myself on the image - the effort above is 95% faithful to the one on the screen).
Sure, it stemmed from its Latin counter part, but it was really done to become "Arabic". Note that this was a trend among brands, applied to their advertising materials, but also to their shops - whereby logos would be rewritten in the same font in Arabic or the closest font, and for those with funky logos, recreated as best as possible in Arabic (as a matter of fact, it was a law in Saudi Arabia). The technique is not flawless, as the brasserie Paul logo translated into - pee...
