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| Artwork by Tarek Chemaly |
On January 31rst 2007, on the six post of the blog which was incredibly young, I wrote the following words:
"C'est pas parce qu'on n'a rien a dire, qu'il faut fermer sa gueule.... It's not because we don't have anything to say that we ought to shut our mouths. I say this because 99% of all blogs abide by this rule. Hopefully this one does not. But let's be honest, most blogs are narcissistic exercises of ego-massage, whose principal function is merely to convey their owner's non-happening life and less-than-interesting opinions. Again, I do hope this one is different. The reason that took me so long to start a blog is 1) My inherent fear of technology, 2) The idea that what I have to say could kill people out of boredom (Is this considered second degree murder?) and 3) Oh well, I always thought email was more personal (Even when sent to a list of people)."
Lately I have noticed I am publishing with a bit less frequency than before. The reason - and correct me if I am mistaken - I have not seen any ads worth mentioning. Not that it is an oddity, but lately it does seem that - really - I could not see anything exploding in my eyes that said "yes, this is it" or "who on earth approved this?".... Maybe I am being biased, maybe there are indeed ads worth seeing but they are hiding so well that I am not able to see them.
But truly, I feel that somehow, we are on the lowest common denominator. I said it prior and I will say it again - in 2005 you needed about 600 billboards for your campaign to stand out, these days three ads on the highway does it for you.
I do think it is something specific to Lebanon, as other countries seem to be winning awards (even if said campaigns were engineered in Lebanon by badly paid creatives) left and right. Which means that the GCC markets are thriving.
I know, I know, I seem to be contradicting myself as every so often I say this campaign is good or this one breathtaking. But on the whole, something is severely off with the market. And sometimes I am just ashamed to "c'est pas parce qu'on n'a rien a dire, qu'il faut ouvrir sa gueule".
