France, Lebanon, ABC and Swatch

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

If you did not live in the 80s you wouldn't know what the Swatch craze was. The first time Charles came from Cyprus (because this is where all the well to do Lebanese went to flee the war) wearing a see-through model, everyone laughed at him. To be honest I was intrigued, it was like nothing else I had seen in my life. I don't need to tell you that, when the plastic watch made it to Lebanon the hype was only too real. 

Yesterday I spoke about how people looted cat food cans from Spinneys and still ate them (here), today I will go on with a war remembrance. The war in question was the one that happened between the Lebanese Forces and the fragment of the Lebanese army that was led at the time by General (later President) Michel Aoun. So this put it squarely in 1989, and since these scenes happened in winter so it must have been February (that war started on February 14th). 

If I am recalling too many details, it is because some things stay with us. Today, on instagram I saw a photo of students with Louis Vuitton and Dior backpacks in a class in Saint Denis (of course the image is AI generated). For your info, Saint Denis is not considered a rich area, on the contrary is a heavily industrialized commune with workers as its core populace. The hint? These were looted from the previous days.

The women in the house opposite our apartment building in Achrafieh had, according to Madame Silvart (who was living in the gorgeous house right next to them) "fi boyfriend kitir" as she used to say in her broken Arabic (there are a lot of boyfriends). These boyfriends? Well, just pick and choose. I remember once they were selling saj bread (open air oven bread) during that same war (basically a couple of days before the incident I shall mention) and after about two hours of waiting and just as my turn came, a green militia jeep came, took all the bread left and went.

So what does Swatch has to do with anything? Well, during that time all shops were closed. Banks too. Access to money was incredibly tight. Then N., the (at the time very young) daughter of one of those women shows up to the shelter of our building (which used to house many neighboring people from the street) with a brand spanking new Swatch. The gorgeous one that had the X sign on it. Obviously, something was amiss.

She - in all logic - would not be able to have had the watch bought for her now that the market was inexistent, especially that anyone who had any semblance of money was keeping it aside. Then, rumors started started circulating, the ABC mall in Dbayeh had been looted (interestingly, the news is not on the net). Put two and two together and you get where the watch came from.

I know the Saint-Denis joke upstairs is made up (I think!) but N. was indeed wearing that Swatch.

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.

ABC goes back to youth for Christmas

A long time ago, there was a Bata ad which went "pour ceux qui croient toujours au Pere Noel, pour ceux qui n'y croient plus, pour ceux qui veulent croire encore" (for those who do not believe in Santa Claus, for those who no longer do, for those who want to believe again) featuring shoes for little children, adults and and elderly respectively. Well Hedgehog is too young to even know about that ad, but this is not too far off from the idea behind this ABC mall ad "the season to be young" which used the same creative concept that well, even elderly people and adults can enjoy the presents supposed to be for the kids. Not that the ad is copied or anything, far from it, and yes, the joy is indeed all around (even if I'd argue that gifting a child a drum set might not be advisable). The ad does work its charm - in a season that did not see many breakthrough hits, this might be just one. See the ad here.

A Christmas - End of year pot pourri of ads around town

No, it not starting to feel like Christmas. I am not saying this to be the messenger of doom but no matter who I meet, I can detect immediately how crushed, tired and - yes - defeated everyone is. The advertising scene is not much better. There are no official figures that I know of, but am sure this year has not been a vintage one. I spoke to several people who own shops and all of them agreed that the second half of the year was a disaster. Still, there are some mild efforts being undertaken. Below is a mix and match of some of them - and even if some ads do not refer explicitly to Christmas/End of year festivities, I included them because their raison d'etre seems obvious:

ABC Mall went their usual upscale route inviting their customers to "celebrate their love" (the love of the nearest and dearest). Well, considering the prices, the treatment makes sense.

Beirut Beer went with building a Christmas tree from their bottles. I saw this installation in two places (Gemmayze and City Mall in Dora). Well, it does make sense I presume considering what they sell.

Bildits - which has a name that immediately tells you what it does - is a children's set where the kind can build a house like a "real engineer". Well, OK, the kid is male which is a bit anticipated, but well, who knows, maybe including a girl could have caused some social stir.

Bo Concept is having an up to 60% off sale. I do hope they do mark down items - several years back on a "clearance sale" I was offered 15% off a sofa.

File this under "I had no idea Bombay Sapphire was in Lebanon" also file under "I don't consume much alcohol to know it is in Lebanon". Still, it is interesting Bombay Sapphire decided to launch such a wide-covering campaign to celebrate their "premier cru".

Boss watches & Jewelry - OK fine you get a free bracelet with every purchase. Interesting, considering the first function of a cell phone is actually to tell the time.

GS went for a bit of a serious image for their end of year outing - I already spoke of their advent calendar online though (here).

Deco Sleep Comfort - with wishes of a peaceful Christmas. One cannot miss this ad. Obviously you know what they sell.

Cyber Monday? Make that Cyber Christmas for Home Tag. Well, many companies are already offering sales and offers - just to tell you how dire the market situation is.

Ixsir has a limited edition of bottles out enticing people to add color to their celebration. Usually the bottles are co-branded with an up-and-coming and promising illustrator. Not this year. Obviously due to budget restriction.

Beauty x Magic for Izzat Daouk gave birth to something akin to ugliness and black magic. I am sure effort was injected in this ad. But am truly not a fan.

A long long time ago, there was a Johnnie Walker ad which went "some gifts are too good to give away" (whereby a man is writing a card to accompany a bottle of Johnnie Walker wrapped near him, he ends up drinking the whisky and wrapping the gold pen). I talk of this ad because Johnnie Walker has an ad for Blue Label which can set you back more than 300 USD. At that price, take my pen.

Reva is gifting "dreams for Christmas". Considering my many many insomniac nights, yes please. Also it was belatedly pointed out to me that "reva" and "dreams" are one and the same words, I missed the double-entendre.

As a friend of mine joked - buy tights and get a car, or mostly, the other way around. A bit of a head-scratcher if you ask me.

Zoughaib & Sons have a new collection out - the boussole. Interesting they bothered to design and produce a collection at a time when the market is in such doldrums.

Swarovski - celebrate wonder.... Again, well am sure the ad has its target audience. Women who really long to shine - without the price of real jewelry.

As you can see, some effort has been done. Nothing to write home about, but there is a very shy activity going on. Nothing like the mega campaigns that used to be done in the past, but one can feel the budgets squeezed to the maximum, and since the whole country is not in top shape, I suppose the ad scene sort of mirrors that.

Christmas according to ABC mall, Aishti and GS

It is, believe it or not, Christmas. Hard to guess it from the ambient lack of cheer in Lebanon what's with the economic crisis still hitting everyone hard no matter the socio-economic class. Yet still, Christmas this year for the ad industry is slightly - marginally slightly - better than than the 3 years that preceded it. ABC mall (with its major flagships in Dbayeh, Achrafieh and Verdun) has unleashed its "unwrap Christmas" campaign with a visual a little too on the nose (even if well done art direction wise of - you guessed it - a large ribbon being unwrapped from the dress of a woman). 

Aisthti the most upscale retailer in town has gone the if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it route by rehashing the "give plenty" campaign it unveiled last year (here), to be honest I think the Christmas tree made of boxes was also done prior though I cannot find it in my archives.

GS - a multibrand store - which represents companies not as luxurious as Aishti but still well seen and (pricey in their own way these days) such as Timberland or Geox has gone with "Holiday in Style" inside a rectangle - which it applied to various visuals or stand alone ads.

Of course, asking cash-strapped shoppers to be enthusiastic for Christmas is a very tall order especially with everything going completely bananas at this point.

Banksy makes it to ABC Verdun

Banksy, the artist who is always walking the edge of consumerism and anti-consumerism, capitalism and anti-capitalism, authority and anti-authority all at once has made it to Lebanon.

Where? In some torn down graffitied hangar? Well, no, think again.

"The world of Banksy - the immersive experience" will open at the Art Space at ABC mall in Verdun. A capitalist mecca is there was one. To be honest, the only info I have comes from this link (here). Which indeed sort of showcases the street artist's "greatest hits".

Mind you, I am not against, I mean last time we saw Kaws statues it was when a bank sponsored them at the Beirut Art Fair right bang before the crash came and toppled everything (Kaws statues included). So voila, Banksy is in Lebanon.

For better or for worse. Apparently shredder not included.

ABC Mall used to be in the soap business!

Source: Lebanon_dekkene

Ah isn't that refreshing! (Har har!)

We all know ABC or what is known today as a mall with several branches which features several (international and local) brands but also a big ABC shop as well (which itself represents brands distinct from those outside of it yet within its premises), but which does not have its own ABC branded products.

Well that same ABC which had a major store in Bab Idriss - the store still exists but is small compared to its flagships in Dbayeh, Achrafieh and Verdun - used to be in the soap-making or at least soap-selling business. The soap in question is the "saboun baladi" otherwise known as "saboun Naboulsi" because it was made in Nablus in Palestine (or simply "Naboulsi" in Egypt and other countries) which is commonly known as "traditional soap". However to differentiate each brand, the soap had to be stamped for the logo to identify the end product.

For this, a special machine (basically a wooden stick with the logo on top of it in "reverse") had to be used. Credit goes for Lebanon_dekkene on Instagram for finding the stamping machine which is now missing the letter "B" from the ABC logo but which immediately tells you which brand it was anyhow.

ABC used that logo for so many years before rebranding (circa 2003-4). Which is a pity if you ask me.

Here is the old ABC logo which I took from an old advertising of theirs.

As a small final note, since traditional soap is made essentially out of oils, I use it instead of shampoo as it eliminates dandruff (oils have this capacity to nourish the scalp!).

ABC Mall goes for a strong concept for end of year campaign

ABC Mall is all out decking the halls, with a strong conceptual campaign for its end of year showing. The ads, whereas economical in copy, hit right where they should. Very well shot, with rather upscale tones, they delimit the target audience to an upper bracket (which is normal considering the prices), and entice the would be shoppers to get into the pseudo-exclusive environment. Oddly, they carry a strong whiff of the ads Leo Burnett used to do for Aishti (the multi brand store selling all those chic brands). Well, again, the campaign works for its intended purposes and is a nice visual for one to see on such large surfaces at the mall. 

ABC Mall and that wonderful post-explosion ad

 

ABC mall has taken a gigantic building facade overlooking the sea to put an ad that says "min kalbi Salam li Beirut" (from my heart a greeting to Beirut after the Fairouz song - words put to Concerto Aranjuez music), but with everyone using the same ploy the ad came a tad used. But may I remind you if the great ad the mall issued in 2007 right after a bomb exploded in their parking lot? "It was a black night but we are open" which doubles as "it was a black night but we are on the lighter end if the spectrum" - how genius was that.... 

The history of Lebanon: Simulacra and simulation. (Official release)

Watch HERE:

Based on the philosophical treatise by Jean Baudrillard. This art project is an attempt to retrace the history of Lebanon through signs and signifiers.

Simulacra are defined as copies that depict things that either had no original, or that no longer have an original, whereas simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time.

Lebanon has not had a common official history book since before the war, students still study in archaic books that end somewhere around 1972. The reason for that is simple, since history is not the real version of the events but simply the narrative dictated by the winner, and since there was no clear winner of the Lebanese war at the abrupt end of it, then the saying by Bill Farrell - the late New York Times reporter in Lebanon - "there's no truth in Beirut, only versions" still holds.

To make things worse, the same political families which ruled Lebanon during the war, are still there and refusing to look at their past and be able to understand what they did wrong or assess their legacies in the bloody events. Still, all is not lost, for - no matter in which shelter one was in the Lebanese war - we were all listening to the same ads, jingles, watching the same soap operas, using the same products, going to (different) cinemas which were showing the same movies, enjoying the same heartthrobs - be they in roman photo (translated Italian photoromanze) or singing sensations, and the list goes on.

Only the signs and signals of pop culture of Lebanon will be able to join us when "politics" divides us. Politics stems from the two Greek words, "polis" and "ethos" - polis or the "heart of the fortress" and ethos which means ethics. So the original meaning of the word meant "the ethics of living in a community" and if that had to go through advertising jingles, then so be it. 

The project aims to use pop culture, in terms of symbols, names, catchphrases as a way to unify the Lebanese around the same concepts and ideas, and using the said elements as emotional triggers to help preserve memories both personal and collective.

Baudrillard has said about the iconoclasts: "One can live with the idea of distorted truth. But their metaphysical despair came from the idea that the image didn't conceal anything at all". Should this be true then the images of this project do not conceal anything either.

The project is composed of "episodes" each being a video art 13,5 seconds long, with each video containing 9 high resolution related images (thematically, geographically or time wise) with a total time of 120 minutes. Along with a two-hour long soundtrack which explores the Lebanese collective memory in terms of audio rarities and songs (specifically related to the war era).