On sexual innuendos in ads, and why Comin got it wrong.

Ah here were are again, still talking about that silly, trashy Comin ad. Well, is this a triumph for them? They do say "bad publicity is good publicity". If this is the case then Comin was a triumph - to be honest I don't think so. Also, now that the door for sexual innuendos has been open, even their name "Comin" is starting to resonate badly. My previous post has generated heated discussion on Linkedin, and to be clear no it was not a "translation" - this ad was done in Arabic. Also many called it "sad", which I tend to concur with. Also, there was people saying that it differentiated itself from what is already on the panels and therefore "made you look" - a must for any ad. The problem? In 2005 (circa) we needed 500 panels for our campaign to be seen in Beirut, now only half a dozen billboards is enough. There is not enough competition and - this I know from an internal source - OOH companies have prices so low they just tell agencies "just book please".

So where does this lead us? Comin had done an ad with a sexual innuendo. It was at best, idiotic. Because as a company they were incredibly innovative when it comes to the packages they proposed to clients (in case you want to see the ad again, please do so here). I shall refer you to what I wrote previously about the Vote for Tolerance Aizone campaign (here):

The smartness was to dress the models in colors that resembled the Lebanese political parties (orange for FPM, green for Lebanese Forces, blue for Future Movement....) but look deeper and you shall see it is about homosexuality and bisexuality and their acceptance. The body language in the ad whereas barely dissimulated was enough to get past censorship.

You don't have to go above and beyond for things to work. As I said the Aizone campaign is a prime example of that. We may be talking about Comin, but there is also brand value - now this is tarnished for Comin. I hope it was worth it for the sake of just one ad.

Aishti campaign, new but not so for end of year

This is what Aishti did for end of year in 2021, then 2022, then this for 2023. Look, maybe, just maybe, there was some sort of animation in those 2 years, but for some reason when I saw the above I gave me a distinct impression of deja vu (OK, no jokes about reloading the matrix, than you). It is indeed, very close, as in very, very close to the two former campaigns which also included window dressings for its various stores including the flagship which got damaged in the 2020 August explosion in downtown Beirut. But all this is to say, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". But even the town's most upscale retailer is not immune to the catastrophe that befell on the Lebanese economy. Surely, it has its VIPs and big spenders, but knowing that the aspirational consumers are no longer there nor are they accessible must have hurt. But well, still, launching a small end-of-year campaign when all merchants are telling me that the second half of the year was completely abysmal is commandable.

Is Almaza unfiltered taking a page from the Aizone playbook?

On the plus side, Almaza seems to be the only major player still advertising - which I guess is good for the economy. On the minus side, the results are really inconsistent (here). For their latest installment, Almaza unfiltered, the brand tries to riff on all those problems in Lebanon - anything from how the beach in Saida has been taken over by Muslim extremists denying women the right to wear a swimsuit, to women walking the streets and being harassed, to men with non-conforming genders, going through a whole multitude of issues that gen Z or millennials find challenging. 

However, the tone of voice, the way the ad was shot, the whole ambiance made me remember a much, much better ad that riffed on too many such social issues... The ad was done by Leo Burnett in 2005 for Aizone (the kid brother of Aishti - the town's most luxurious adress) which you can find here. I truly think Almaza redid the original though with less gusto than the Aizone effort (which I still find sublime after all these years).

Watch the Almaza effort here, which in itself is interesting. And to give credit where credit is due, the original concept - Un-filtered beer which is as brave as the Lebanese "enduring unacceptable and unjust daily deceptions" (as per the words of Almaza) which leads to the words un-censored, un-hate, un-armed, un-censored, un-afraid and so on in the ad is actually not half as bad. 

I still think however the Aizone ad was much better done.

Aishti/Aizone and the end of year campaign

And here it is, despite all the horrors, all the turmoils of the last year and the year before, Aishti and its younger sibling Aizone splash an end of year campaign centered around graphics for festive sentences "Always be merry" for Aishti and "Always give plenty" for Aizone. The campaign is displayed throughout some very strategic billboards and adorns the shops themselves. Aishti is a prime luxury destination and Aizone is hot on its heels as well (though caters for a younger or funkier crowd), so the clientele is well known, and whereas I had a strong feeling Aishti 1) lost its aspirational shoppers 2) was competing with itself with its many many branches scattered in malls not too far from its flagship stores, eventually the brand downsized astronomically what's with the economic crash affecting heavily its clientele (example, all the mono brand shops at the Beirut Souks closed down except for Camper, and that was several months prior to the severe explosion of August 4, 2020 - in addition many outposts for the brand vanished from lower caliber malls as well). 

Still, the campaign is very much in line with the post Leo Burnet handling on the brand (which is now in the hands of &Walsh but I stand corrected) - meaning heavy graphics or surrealistic takes.