Tora Bika - underwhelming in two languages

I saw this ad in two languages, and neither are interesting, both forgettable. The above is the Arabic, the English is just as bad, the ad goes "all the coffee... at your house". Thing is, they did book ad space for this, and well, I guess this whole "at your house" thingy is some coordinated campaign judging by their Macchiato instagram effort (here). 

Well, I am exactly this kind of product's target audience, and feel myself totally unmoved. So yes, we do instant coffee - make that several cups - but what's the addition is this bringing? Emotionally? Or on the "daily slice of life" level? Or even on the price-point level which is crucial to the Lebanese at this point? Considering the above, this leaves me underwhelmed, 

Benina does it again.

Interesting I never commented on this before, at least nothing in my blog archive, but this ad has been running for years during Ramadan. By years, I mean years. But then again look at it from their angle - the idea is to sell canned vegetables and the like, the line is "your partner in your table" (in Arabic it is better). Same image, same line, same target audience, and actually same placements for the ads. I am trying to think if this is "lazy" or "adequate", personally  lean for the latter. Why invent gun powder when what worked before is still available. Interestingly, whereas the ad is Ramadan geared, there are no crescents or lanterns or the usual paraphernalia. 

Shopping month is back according to Khoury Home

Shopping month? Yes, Shopping month! Either you are too young to remember it or now senile and cannot remember it. But - here's a recap: Shopping month originated as a February festival in the UAE to get more tourists during the February lull, and immigrated back to Lebanon with the joke that merchants would put at 50% discount on an item but keep the same price (no seriously, someone peeled the "new" price to discover it was the same as the old one!) yet, old habits die hard - at least for Khoury Home which is doing its own February sale under the parasol of "shopping festival" - the boombox in itself is time machine enough to let you know which decade we are going back to (all right kind of 90s!).

Who is the "Lebanese coalition for peace" #askingforafriend

If anyone knows who or what is the "Lebanese coalition for peace" or التجمع اللبناني للسلام please tell me. The reason I ask is because they signed a series of ads which I saved from the net as I was browsing my daily newspaper round (found those on The Guardian if you want to know). The ads are two in Arabic, two in English and try to strike 12 birds in 4 stones because they go on different angles. First the Arabic "Peace is not talk, peace is our interest... Enough wars" then "He who counts baton (hitting) is not like the one administering them. Lay off the south (of Lebanon)... Enough wars" (this is a local idiom by the way about someone watching a disaster vs someone living it). 

Then the English "It's not treason to dream of living in peace... Enough wars" and "We want to succeed here like we succeed abroad... Enough wars". Sure invoking treason is enough to cut the corner of any "dissenting" voice, now about succeeding let us ad incredibly slow internet, red tape, bureaucracy, bribes, incredibly high office space rent, just for starters. As I said, the ads play both the rational and emotional card at once, the patriotic and the anti-internal fragment at the same time, try to speak to the youth (or on their behalf), families, and elderly people wishing to remain in situ. 

Now, again booking ads and producing them requires money, so who on earth is "Lebanese coalition for peace"... Trying to ask for a friend obviously.

Tawfeer - breathtaking Fawatir Ramadan campaign

Forget Sherihan and her fawazir (riddles)! 

On second thought she is unforgettable!

But hang in there with me - Tawfeer the supermarket which built its reputation on savings has an incredible Ramadan ad. The trick? To call it "Fawatir Ramadan" along with the usual "folkloric" brouhahah (it is implied the couple in the ad are Shahrazad and Shahrayar of the One thousand and one nights tale). The ribbon coming from her tantour and reaching his feathered turban is actually a long bill (the kind you get on the till) to coincide with "Ramadan bills" (which means "fawatir"). The ad is impeccable, yet blink and you'll read it "fawazir". Truly a beautiful, lovely ad, well-thought and incredibly well-designed to boot. All elements that lead to loving it. Respect to anyone who concepted, designed and approved this one. A real beauty.

Petro Elite, funky line and small logo

Petro Elite, well seems there is a reason I have not heard of them. Apparently they operate between Antelias and Baabda. Look the ad does what it is supposed to do - look and it and remember it (oddly, for once a bigger logo would have helped), because the line is cute, funky, and it rhymes. "Mazout Mazbout" (a correct - read not cheated - diesel). OK, the ad does add a lot of other info as well, some of it too small in typo to be read from afar on the highway. But the line works. As I said, it needed a bigger logo paradoxically.

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Lipton - emotional simplicity does it

That Lipton is probably the highest selling tea in Lebanon is a fact. That tea is a major part of post-Iftar (and soohoor too) is also a fact. That Lipton needed a Ramadan ad is a no brainer. They could have gone "creative" (read - one which needs a major explaining and a manual of instructions), or flat (read - just the brand logo and thank you), but nope, they struck just the middle with an emotional punch. "Tea unites us" - and it does, away from differing political opinions, age barriers, non-compatible music tastes and the list goes on, tea is that point where everything becomes mellower, softer, and yes, warmer. Pimo strikes again. There are two short ads - the Lebanon version (here) and the Kuwait version (here).

Breidy Naturals - let's all chant

Breidy Naturals (here), yes, I know me too was not aware of their existence. Still they have a campaign running, which is either very nice or missing a trick. OK the above goes "Breidy Naturals every minute" which is referring the famous chant "so and so 3al terwi2a, so and so kil d2i2a" (so and so for breakfast, so and so every minute. Mind you this was ultra popular with Sagesse basketball team). They also added "Breidy naturals before Ski" and "Breidy naturals after Ski". To complete the campaign. I think because Breidy seems to be in Ajaltoun on the way to the ski slopes this is why the ski reference was added. 

The above are the four different executions, with the same layout on all four mind you. So yes, it is the popular chant but adapted to Breidy naturals. But obviously, as a consumer you cannot see it in "order" on the highway, so it is a bit of a guessing game.

Bjorg barista, niche product with a gutsy move

Bjorg is a niche healthy product. Bjorg barista is an even more niche product. Yet, the campaign is so incredibly aggressive on too many outlets to count. Gutsy move. The ad in itself is a bit safe, with "what if organic got this foamy" - again, the product is not mass, and especially now in Lebanon with the crisis still going strong, it might target very - as in very - specific audience. Still, here we are.

Taanayel les fermes vs Hadeel rice #compareandcontrast

I know these two might seem a mismatch but, the Taanayel les fermes ad was done in 2018 and yet it is a twist for Army Day for one that said "our heart is white" (sadly I cannot locate it in my archives, I believe it part of the batch that went when I lost my hard drive so it must have been 2016). Hadeel rice has an ad that says "our heart is white". I am not saying they did I am not saying they didn't compare and contrast

Fancy Feast and Felix le Chat cat food

This is not an anecdote... When the war broke, people ransacked the Spinney's supermarket. Within the loot there was cat food, the people refused to believe it was so and ate it. So here we are, right now there is - not one but two cat food ads in town. The second of Felix - same idea, and same amount of display. One is about "show your love in different ways" the other "it's great to be a cat". My best is that the same company distributes both products.

Not even sure how to react to this. At a time when Lebanese can barely feed themselves, when 60% of the population is below the poverty line, have 2 ads for cat food is - not sure what the word is here. Again, I might be judging this very uppity or whatever, but it does make one think.

McDonald's let's not call it lent

Every year, same charade. Major fast food joints start advertising their fish-based meals - this is an implicit way of offering people fasting from red and white meat an option to actually dine at their places during lent. Interestingly, the word lent is never used (save for very few exceptions through the years). To give credit where credit is dew, the first such campaign to use the word was the - now defunkt - Classic Burger Joint in an ad dating back to 2012.

This being said, McDonald's is having major ads for its Swiss & Mushroom (and Burger King has a different ad as well for its Big King and Chicken Big King meal.

Najjar Raqwa q2 - paint coffee by numbers

At the beginning of my career in advertising a major coffee brand was the client of the agency I was working it. I presented my creative idea so seductively, the owner of the company said when I finished "now I feel like I want a cup of coffee!" - if I say this it is because, well, there are ways to make the coffee (or in this case the coffee machine) desirable. The one used in the ad is not it.

Thankfully the two end lines remain from the previous agency - "coffee as it should be" (el ahwe 3a oussola) and "wherever there is coffee, there's Najjar" (wayn ma fi ahwe, fi Najjar). Still, honestly, the sight of the man and the woman in the ad "pretending" to enjoy their coffee is - truly - a sight not to behold. Watch the ad here.

The Lebanese army plays the coexistence card smartly

Lebanese army gets two birds in one stone. You have to hand it out to them. Is it opportunistic? Yes. Smart? Incredibly so. Well there you go by sheer coincidence Christian lent and Muslim Ramadan fast are overlapping this year. The Lebanese army, one of the rare institutions that kept the co-mingling between religions and sects intact jumped on the occasion with "blessed fast" with the cross and the moon crescent at once. Easy, single-minded, smart, and very efficient.

Bonlait fights with the price

"We didn't skimp on the content, we skimped on the price", "smart price, smarter choice". So goes Bonlait, in two ads focusing on what matters most to consumers - the price. The ad also showcases two different kinds of products, the regular yoghourt box and the milk drink in a bottle. Probably the only issue with the ad is that the brand does not show immediately (had to look at several ads on the highway to end up deciphering the name of the brand. This being said, the campaign is aggressive and plastered on a lot of places. 

Dairy Khoury cruises to Ramadan

"Greek youghourt in festive dates" - how clearer can one be? Well OK 13 Grams of protein if you want to know. Dairy Khoury plays the Ramadan card boldly and unapologetically. and makes it known that it is not playing games. Interestingly, even if the ad says a lot (brand name, selling line, headline, protein content, without counting the graphics) it did stay true to its core message. As I said earlier single-minded ads are very few and in-between these days as everyone tries to ship several distinct messages in the same ad. 

Today, the ad that does what it came to do

"Forget about tomorrow, stay in Today" - a zero sugar chocolate with everything in Arabic except the name of the brand. A brand mind you that is a favorite of diabetics o of people wishing to diet or not gain weight, or damn me, people who like good-tasting chocolate. Today comes in different variations, and all of them good. Whereas the ad is not award-worthy, it fulfills what it came to do and does it very well if you ask me. 

SNA - live ahead.

Either my English is getting bad or this sentence makes no sense. OK "live ahead". Again, to be fair if anyone knows what this means, please enlighten me. Does this mean "live with the future in mind" or "live and prepare for tomorrow" or... "be a time traveler"? I mean I don't mind grammatical mistakes (the great Apple line "think different" is wrong, it should be "think differently" but it is the error that makes the beauty). So again, the picture I get it - a man with his daughter on his shoulders as they have a great time together (emotional language 101). It was the slogan next to it that left me puzzled. But then again - what do I know? I just worked on the account several years and I know the company could have its fixed ideas.

Kinza Cola, a new kid in town

Who knew the market needed a new cola brand. If you didn't, here it is. Kinza Cola - available also in diet if you must know - is now a new entrant to the Lebanese market (currently locked under the Pepsi claw considering Coca-Cola has left the building). To be clear I did not even try it, but one must give it out to the guts of going into a market which is price-sensitive, and one where a major brand is literally monopolizing it. Also not sure, but I thought Kinza was a more female-ish name.... 

Mink and Valentine's: Will the real Mink stand up please?

That I am a fan of Mink is no secret. They landed on my best yearly ads several years - no mean feat I can assure you. Their classic Ksara ad for 2023 is mind-blowing (here).  Which brings us to this underwhelming series for Valentine's this year. Apart from "single and ready to minkle" (which is passable) the rest are - sadly - too below their usual standards (and mind you, it pains me to say it). Nothing works, either they are too forced, or too plain, or too "meh", or too McCafe-already-did-that-just-two-months-ago (here). Which is surprising coming from a team which kept churning hit after hit after hit. Ah well, on to the next, no point getting stuck in a bunch that was really, well, did not work at all. Let's see what's down the line and forget this flop.