Annahar gets itself an incomprehensible selling line

As I always say, advertising is becoming too smart for me. File this under: I seriously have no clue what this means. OK so Annahar newspaper has a selling line which am assuming is perhaps new as not seen it before. Annahar in Arabic means "the day". The line? Clear sight in the peak of the day. Now, correct me if I am mistaken - how would this position the newspaper or give it an edge over, you know, natural light? As far as I can "see" (sorry for the pun) there is none. What does the paper bring me then? No idea. How does this place the paper over and above any other media is mysterious to me. I have spoken prior about the use of the brand inside selling lines (here) with exceptional examples from Kiri cheese, or Fairy washing liquid. Well, suffice to say, this is not one of them.

Now about that flag-defacing sensational ad

Many moons ago for Independence Day Aishti came up with the ad above. It caused a stirr and some legal repercussions.... And today? It seems Annahar was behind (along with their ad agency one presumes!) the stunt of raising the Lebanese flag with the cedar striken-through diagonally. Apparently, with the approach of International Women's Day it seems it was the most fitting way to - what exactly, I know not! Yet, the furore was so big, even the presidential palace told them to shove it because you cannot deface the flag (kind note: who in his or her right mind did not know you could not deface the flag). Now, the stunt has been dismounted thankfully. But seriously, how idiotic is that?

The Guardian - with echoes of Annahar

Sometime, in the mid-90s a billionaire tycoon wanted to take over the Annahar newspaper (no names hehe). Having caught wind of that, the Annahar management spearheaded by the late Ghassan Tueni, launched an ad inside the paper that went:

الجريدة التي لا يمولها القارئ يمولها المجهول

The newspaper which is not funded by the reader is funded by the unknown.

And guess which newspaper has had a major funding from readers in a drive which has not been equaled so far? The Guardian! Actually, they have a new campaign that literally says "Not for sale" and the second screen goes "we're funded by readers not billionaires". Whereas Annahar was omnious and threatening, The Guardian goes with a much lighter tone and colors - but with the same idea at base.

Pity at the time cameras were not rampant for me to record the Annahar ad, but trust me on my memory people!

AnNahar AI president? Great until things get real

So AnNahar introduced the first AI president for Lebanon. Look on the one hand this is a very laudable initiative in a country with no president, a caretaker government, and parliament which - well is not very active. In their own words: The new AI president of Lebanon has been created by training Large Language Models on 90 years of impartial journalism from AnNahar since the 1930's. It analyses not only the historical data provided through the pages of AnNahar but also current events, and formulates answers for all political, legal and government questions. By tapping into this vast knowledge base, the AI president has a deep understanding of Lebanon's past, as well as an unbiased perspective on the challenges that the country faces today.

Now, I am going to bypass the "impartial journalism" thingy because I know things that are not fit to print which might make one reconsider the term. But still, I can understand the hype and the innovative aspect of the operation. Good on them doing it.

Now, big question: Why not apply that to real life? I mean if you already did it in the abstract why not apply it on the ground. We already have the perfect president allegedly so let's go and just elect the "person" (note I am not specifying the gender - here's hoping!).

Which brings us to how murky the Lebanese politics is. I am often asked about the late Rafic Hariri and my answer is always that watching politics from the sideline in Lebanon is one thing, being involved in it is another. Hariri was a prime example of that - he was eager to join the Lebanese politics, until he did. And discovered how everything was a gigantic quid pro quo - every project, no matter how beneficial to the population became a quagmire of profit-sharing, every this, that etc.... Which again divorces the theory of politics from its practical aspect.

Actually the word politics stems from Greek - polis and ethos: polis is the heart of the fortress and ethos is ethics. So the word basically means "the ethics of living in a community", which basically does not account for the former and current and most likely future politicians in Lebanon. But still, here we are. 

In a post dating July 16, 2015 I suggested the following about Abou Fouad, the (now sadly dead) face of Yes detergent:

So there, Abou Fouad goes to Washington, or rather Baabda.... Our household extraordinaire is exceptional in being cost-efficient, multitasker, a good council, he is diplomatic, has a million tricks up his sleeve. And frankly, between the available options, I says "yes" to Abou Fouad (pardon the pun!)... The campaign is on ladies and gentlemen!

Alternatively we could always have... (image dated May 24, 2014)

With #RedressLebanon, AlNahar aims for awards not readers.

I am starting to detect a pattern here (har, har) - I mean with the way AlNahar newspaper is advertising itself.

First the campaign itself - in their own words:

"Emanating from the mesh that covered most wrecked and destroyed buildings in Beirut following the explosion of August 4th, Zuhair Murad creates a design to transform this fabric into art and dress the city in a befitting gown. To this day, the AlNahar building, which was heavily affected, remains enveloped in this fabric.

In support of the victims of the blast and their families, #RedressLebanon is selling 10452 NFTs of this dress to raise funds for them. All proceeds will go to “IDRAAC” NGO."

Now, fresh from their Cannes Lions win, AlNahar goes for another award-worthy idea. OK not them, their advertising agency. But I digress.

Look, if AlNahar wanted to target readers, they'd be printing top-notch articles rather than clickbaits. If AlNahar wanted to target readers, it would have promoted mid-level journalists to higher positions. And I go on, indefinitely. But AlNahar and its advertising agency are vying for awards, not for readers.

You know, if they really cared about simple communication, they would have unified how their name is in Latin - is it AlNahar or Annahar (as their website goes?). 

See? Before the awards, address those simple rules.

But then again next year's Cannes Lions await.

Elections 2022: On selling your vote.

Photo by Tarek Chemaly

Selling your vote. Well, let's be honest, can you have an election without vote-buying and falsification?

Short answer: No.

Well, ad agencies jumped at this. Leo Burnett teamed with Lebanese Transparency Agency (LTA) and FP7 McCann with Annahar. Each from a different standpoint.

OK, so LTA went back to the Lollar (term originally coined by Dan Azzi, which if I understood correctly gave his blessing to the campaign, but without Patrick Chemali's logo). Actually, tangible and physical prints/designs of Lollar (that the LTA dubbed as "currency of corruption) were introduced. On May 13, this is when there will be an ATM which will dispense such bills which will move from Dora, to Sassine Square and Raouche.

Annahar went with another idea - since votes will be bought anyhow - might as well advise the votes how much their vote is really worth (with apparently a smart algorithm which calculates exactly how much it is worth compared to fuel, food, education costs etc....). They even launched a website: se3erlsot.com (which translates as price of the vote).

OK, you did not hear this from me but... Do I smell Cannes Lions entries here?

On why I disagree with the late Ghassan Tueni

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

I know it seems pretentious to argue with someone who is considered heavy-weight intellectual such as Ghassan Tueni. But I do, vehemently so. 

OK, let me explain my main contention: 

I do not think ours in Lebanon was a war "pour les autres" (a war of others).

Say what you want about the vested nature of the "international forces", about Lebanon being at a "cross-current of politically competing nations", about this and that nation giving arms to this or that faction (or to both!), about each part having a different allegiance to diverging ideologies (the pan-Arab vs the "in3izaliye" - or the isolationists), about the flip-flopping power-hungry nations which swarmed in our orbit or us in theirs, say what you want about this.

It is, in the end, the average Lebanese who carried the gun, who was part of a militia, who went behind barricades, who stormed hotels, who ambushed regular people, who planted wire-bombed cars (the story of Samira Ibrahim going back home after planting the car with the explosive that killed 59 people and injured 135 while eating ice cream and singing as if nothing happened, still sends chills to my spine), who also got "war trophies" (a person I know tells the story of an elderly woman sitting on a chest filled with gold and jewels, when they came to make sure the house was safe, the woman was killed and the chest vanished), who berated and humiliated other religions (the old cheikh whose half-beard was shaved at a checkpoint), the closed roads and tunnels, who imposed local "taxes" (with one such man telling my own mother "either you pay or we get the money in other ways"), who implicated God in their acts (such as the now late Jocelyne Khoueiry who included the "mystical" narrative to the Lebanese Forces).

Do I go on?

Already it is incredibly difficult to recount the above (if you have not lived the war, you do not know how eternally-perpetuating and taxing it might be).

So yes, by saying it was the war "of others" ("Pour les autres"), or - as his popular theory he uttered many times states: harb el akharin 3ala ardina (Other people's war on our soil) this implies the exoneration of those who went to war, who contributed to it. An easy, moral, and ethical way out. Something in the line of "oh-it-wasn't-you-it-just-someone-else-was-responsible". Something that resonates with Adolf Eichmann's defense of "I was just following orders".

Other people's orders because it was other people's war.