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| Re-O-Vac slogan from my collective memory series celebrating collective memory |
Whereas I am talking about the Lebanese advertising scene, this could apply anywhere. Did you know that the same commercial on Lebanese TV could run for 3-4 years. No, no, I am serious. Yes? Re-O-Vac? AF7? Alico? This is how these ads became staples in our collective and individual memories. As I look back at them (and now they are present everywhere on the net) I cannot deny their charms, but as Ghida Younes asked me back when she was hosting "baddak totla3 3al television?" as to why we remember them fondly even though they were not "award-winning" (ughh that word, again!), it is because we do not remember the ads per se, we remember what they remind us of.
"Picture it" no, not Sicily 1922 to misquote Sofia Petrillo, but Beirut (insert any date - which most likely coincides with the 1975-1990 war), no matter which shelter or political/geographical side you were on, you saw, repeatedly, the same ads over and over again. The frequency of the media buy must have coincided with "anything" happening in your life. The timeless Ghantous w Bou Raad jingle - which again ran so long that when Voix du Liban (Sawt Lebnan) initiated its "greatest radio ad" competition, it made it "hors concours" as people voted for it year after year - was there when you fell in love with that girl having coffee at the neighbours, when your child was born, or when the major explosion happened which may have killed a dear person in your orbit, or more luckily that you have survived miraculously because you decided to leave the balcony and go inside to drink. No, all of these are not invented, but I am pulling all these events from lived-in situations or what we call in the advertising world "slice of life".
They happened. And they happened to people I know. Perhaps the immediacy of the remembrance might not be there, but it is authentic and correct this much I assure you. But all this is linked to longevity, the same ads running over and over. Kronenbourg Beer, which apparently still exists in Lebanon, will always be linked to that day when my village was bombed constantly during the war and we hid - along with cousins - in the small bedroom in the house all the day. Sure, Kronenbourg ads ended up vanishing but not after taking the enormous space they occupied prior on the airwaves.
Today, the whole landscape is different. A campaign is lucky to make it to four months before vanishing. Newness, immediacy, and otherwise built-in obsolescence is at the heart of the advertising/marketing industry. "On to the next" as the late Karl Lagerfeld would say once a fashion show ended. Immediately, there is something "fresher", "industry-shattering", "people-grabbing", "talk of the town material", and here I am repeating those hollow words that get churned in press releases which get thrown at us from agencies left and right. Perhaps they believe what they say, perhaps they are desperate.
At around Christmas 2024, an agency sent me an ad. One of those run-of-the-mill things. The PR girl said "this is an important one, don't miss on it, people will remember it years from now". I emailed literally saying the ad is boring and it will be forgotten once people glance on it. I was indeed right. But all of these "activations", "campaigns", or whatever format everyone keeps producing, are going down the drain.
Is it because people now want "fast things"? Is it because clients are running after "relevancy" and "coolness"? Is it because because ad agencies are trying to justify exorbitant budgets or retainers? It could be any of those, or all of them. But the end output is the same.
Now - let me ask you an existential question - and this, sorry for my non-Lebanese readers - is quite specific to my compatriots...
شو بطاريتك؟