Nancy Ajram now a Persil spokesperson - a masterstroke!

Nancy Ajram. Yes, her. I already spoke about her as a "brand" (here). So let's go back to the very beginning, in the mid-aughts when Miss Ajram as she was back then was fronting Coca-Cola. Full of innocence, exuberance, and displaying her infectious giggle - she was the perfect representative of that young, feminine, cool and fresh brand. I truly think at the time they were a perfect match - and to be honest the brand milked their linkage to the extreme.

Hop to 2011, suddenly Ajram - still an incredibly popular singer - was doing an ad for... Nissan Micra? Yes, because by then in 2008 she got married to Dr. Fadi El-Hachem and was already a mother (her eldest daughter Mila was born in 2009, her second Ella in 2011). Micra was a car aimed for a female audience, you know: women who had to drop their kids to daycare or school, who had to do supermarket runs, who had to park easily and so on and so forth. Again, despite the difference with the original Coca-Cola tie-up Ajram was still a good match - a young mother of two, a busy person, a very aspirational character that other women would emulate.

And now? Persil. The clothing detergent. So once more, we are very far off from the Coca-Cola brand. But not far at all from Nancy Ajram herself. She now has three daughters - Lya being born in 2019 - and well like any other mother, she must have a very busy laundry day with a family of five. Which makes Ajram, with her age, daily life, marital status and family life, once more a perfect tie with Persil.

It is interesting that as Ajram ages, brands still find her profile to match different angles. And all of them work.

Ronaldo: A brand in crisis

Sometime in 1993, at AUB, I pretended to be interested in football. It was a Monday, and for some obscure reason, I knew Ansar had a match during the weekend, and so I asked "so what did Ansar do?" - my friend - a bit incredulous at my knowledge - answered back "they won 2-0". Then a light went up and I remembered that someone else told me they were watching a Safa match during the weekend, so I pushed my luck and asked again "and what did Safa do?" - this is when my friend cocked his head in exasperation and said - "Tarek, they were playing against Ansar!".

And this ended my pretention knowing anything about football. Until I was branded non-feminist (I am still reeling for this!) for commenting on the above ad for Le Mall which dates back to 2010 when Le Mall had a series of ads for women and football. Just to be clear I had to google Mannschaft to understand the joke in the ad.

So why am I talking on Ronaldo? The football legend. The football poet and a one man brand?

Because he is - and subsequently his brand is - in crisis. The man has "been suspended for storming down the tunnel after refusing to come on as a substitute against Tottenhame on Wednesday" (October 19, 2022) and as of yesterday (October 21, 2022) he was training alone at the Manchester United turf where he is a player.

Michael Jordan - arguably the world's best basketball player - and my knowledge of basketball is only marginally better than that of football, eventually went into baseball (drafted with the White Sox) as he took a break when at the peak of his career in basketball. He went back to his "day job" earning 3 more championship rings after his one and a half years of stint in baseball. As far as I know, Ronaldo has no hobbies he might turn into a side-job of some sort.

Do note, Christiano Ronaldo is worth 500 Million Dollars according to Forbes. So it's not like the man is destitute or anything. But life has its way of catching up with all of us - one way or the other. And last April Ronaldo's companion Georgina Rodriguez gave birth to a set of twins, one of them dead at birth. Ronaldo has 5 children, but grief (and specifically the grief of a lost child) is processed differently from one human to another.

Could this have caused the outburst Ronaldo is having? No one knows and no one can tell, perhaps not even Ronaldo himself. What is sure is that at this point he - and in extenso his brand - is/are in crisis.

Because "Ronaldo" the brand was built around the man, and his actions - and whatever thoughts he wished to convey on his instagram in incredibly well-manicured sentences - are all part of something bigger than just a "person". He is now CR7 - which according to the internet includes denim, eyewear, footwear, fragrances, and underwear - and he is a Nike ambassador landing a 1 Billion lifetime deal in 2016. 

But as with every other profession - you are as good as your last performance, or last goal I presume. And even (to the most updated count) 817 goals are not enough. 

Ronaldo would never accept to be a substitute player. But by hurting his team, he hurt his image. And his image is more important than his play on the football field. 

But then again, what do I know? I am the man who googled mannschaft.

So, what did Safa do?

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!).

In Lebanon, brand loyalty is out the window

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

Do the Lebanese like to brag? Do they like to show off? Do they like to live above their means? Oh, is the pope Catholic? If I ask these questions if is because there is a palpable shift somewhere in the Lebanese consumption pattern in Lebanon (see here). Maybe one of the first signs that Lebanese use to mark how they went to an upper socio-economic class is the "signé" attitude (or the branded - naturally, it could be a knock off or a counterfeit, and only logoed garments are used - hence no discrete Hermes but more like a stamped Louis Vuitton all over, in the end, if it is not visible, why bother get it?). "Ana ma bechtere ella min 3and..." - I only buy from (under brand name, fancy store), used to be a catchphrase so overused and abused. But again, the parameters are shifting. 

When I asked students to give me a luxury brand in class (back when I used to teach), several thought Zara was one. When estimating the price of a Louis Vuitton bag, a girl thought that 100 Dollars was a good guess. Paul, the French brasserie one finds in metro stations in Paris is marketed here as a high end brunching destination, same applies to Gap (which shuttered its store in late 2019) and Benetton.

But again, the financial squeeze hit Lebanon incredibly hard. I said it before, brand loyalty is now out the window. "Did you know that between 1968 to 1990 Coca-Cola was boycotted in the Arab world by order of the League of Arab Nations since it provided "financial help for Israel" in the 1967 six day war?" Well, we were a household that exclusively bought Pepsi. Sometime in 2001 I went back home with a bottle of Coca-Cola, my mother looked at it with amazement and asked what it was, and if it was available everywhere?

As long as I can remember since the mid 90s we have used Persil washing detergent (why we made the switch from Ariel is beyond me!). Then a few months back, the washing machine got clogged. The repairman said the washing powder was stuck in the tube, so we switched to Persil gel. Last time I went to the supermarket though, I went back with a Lebanese made Sanita washing gel, which was so much cheaper, and it had 30% free. Oh and I also bought a large size frying oil gallon from a brand I had never heard of, which was (again) substantially cheaper than the one we were accustomed to. Our house-help said that both, the Sanita and the frying oil, washed and fried just as well as the ones we usually bought.

It is said that the pandemic has taught us that we have already enough as it is in our closets. How correct and true this is for the average Lebanese is still a debate. Though shops are closing like crazy in nearby areas, there were still very few people who shopped. How this is representative of the population is not something I can answer (due to COVID-19 self-imposed restrictions I have not been to many malls as of late and even that (malls) might not be indicative to the general population movements).

But am still sticking to my guns. I still believe people are now buying more budget friendly than the brands they used to know or believe in (because brand loyalty is about allegiance above all). The other interesting aspect is that, it is known that in time of crisis, brands are encouraged to advertise, so as to remain top-of-mind in the consumer's mind. This, however, is not something am seeing in the local market. 

All brands are riding the Coronavirus wave, now what?

Well, celebrities are doing boring workouts online, brands are milking this Coronavirus to the last drop, directly or indirectly, officially or through fans (the above composite has the work of designer Ashif Mohammed for Pringles among agency-led work for other brands). OK, now what? All brands are claiming #stayhome and preaching #socialdistancing - some are putting their money where their mouth is: Armani donated 1.25 Million Euros, Prada started with donating six intensive care units and is now manufacturing masks and overalls for the medical staff, Zara is doing the same in Spain, LVMH turned its perfume division to produce and give away sanitizers, and so on and so forth... But make no mistake, take away the fanfare - some of it real, some of it marketing, everyone is asking "now what?" and "where do we go from here?".
How will governments balance the difficult act of maintaining the health of people, to the economy at large. Already in the US there is fidgeting about the shut down, whereas Denmark is promising to pay 75% of employee salaries in the private sector as long as companies do not lay off their employees. But naturally, all this is an abstract equation.
In Lebanon, you need to add our monetary crisis, our capital controls, a devastating storm, social and political unrest, and the equation is honestly overwhelming. But this brings us to the same question "how long will this persist?" - a maddening question as thankfully, Lebanese seem to be taking this seriously despite a few corny aberrations.
Interestingly, the further this goes, the more people and societies reveal what they are made of. Hey even the Young man who originally said "If I get Corona, I get Corona, at the end of the day I am not going to let it stop me from partying" has issued an apology (his name is Brady Sluder and you can read his apology - which to me reeks as a statement by a PR company - here) at the same time Texas Lt. Gov Dan Patrick said that grandparents are willing to die to save economy for their grandchildren.
My readers are now confused, am I talking about Lebanon where I am based or about the world at large? Psssst, it does not matter anymore. A Chinese company donated tens of thousands of masks to Italy and on the boxes it wrote "We are waves of the same sea, leaves of the same tree, flowers of the same garden" which is a quote from Italian philosopher Seneca.
Indeed, we are.

Hershey's Women's Day - a tailor-made campaign

Let's face it, no other brand could do this. Why? Because it is tailor-made to the name of Hershey's. Her/She bars were released withe name of trailblazing women to honor Women's Day. There you go - so specific to the brand it cannot be duplicated. Smart! This was done done in Brazil by the way...

Nancy Ajram - the brand - is on trial.

A long - long - time ago the incredibly popular singer Nancy Ajram did an interview with a pan-Arab magazine where she said "I did two plastic surgeries to be more beautiful", the second day after the magazine hit the stands, her manager - the very capable  Jiji Lamara - went on damage control mode saying it was just spa sessions she meant. Also a long time ago Nancy Ajram said "no one can stop Nancy except Nancy" - little did she factor a man who would come into her villa at night only for him to end up being dead.
Well, at this stage even the simplest facts surrounding the story seem murky.
Why?
Because Nancy Ajram (and by extension her husband who shot the man) has entered the public realm and became a brand - who is having a real time PR crisis which went totally and completely out of hand. Her name trends on twitter daily every day since the tragedy happened. Speculations abound and rumours swirl around her, her husband, her virtue, and every person seems to have become a Sherlock Holmes noticing things in their security video (a fragment of which was distributed online) that properly trained investigators and coroners did not ("did you see the video at so and so minute and second?" - "did you notice the color of dead man's jacket?" and so on).
Once more, no one is treating her as a person - if she publishes a photo with her children, she is either a "devoted mother" or "the woman who robbed other children of their father" (words quoted verbatim from Twitter) - she is seen as an abstracted version of herself, simply, a brand. People are already issuing legal verdicts, interpreting (or rather misenterpreting) all the legal elements surrounding the case, publishing on social media their thoughts as if they were informed opinions. But that is because, again, Nancy Ajram is not being treated as a person any longer. She is now subjected to the whims and speculations of many issues (it did not help that the man who ended up being dead following what was apparently a theft at the singer's house was actually Syrian - because suddenly anyone who mentions his nationality becomes xenophobic, and anyone who does not, is being biased).
Nancy Ajram, who has many deals with companies is now in a compromised position - brands who in the past were running to be able to have her front their goods and paying her lavishly in the process (Coca-Cola, Nissan, Hwawei, Damas (jewelry) but to name a few...) now see her as "divisive" sadly. Regardless of the legal outcome about her husband shooting the man, people already have their mind set ("she is the wife of a muderer" - "she is the victim of a theft") and as is no brand can afford alienating its customer base having her representing them.
It is a pity the woman (or rather her husband) is no longer afforded the luxury of a trial in the legal sense of the word. Now her trial is the realm of public opinion and this is not something Jiji Lamara can sweep under the rug like he did about her plastic surgeries.