Guinness and the much awaited welcome back.

So "good things come to those who wait". And wait is what people did! And now (in the UK at least) restrictions are easing when it comes to the pandemic, and Guinness beer offers its "welcome back" using visual analogy - because, honestly, by now everything looks like a pint of Guinness. And off they go - chimneys, newspaper stacks, doors, graffiti-infused walls, garbage cans, socks, and the list continues. Anything black with something white on top qualifies. And, well, yes, they are all taken from the imagery landscape of the UK in general. Does it work? Well it works so much that someone who is lukewarm about beer like me would want a pint right now. My goodness, my Guinness - has never been more apt as a saying! See the full film here.

Purell - the campaign that says too much in too little of a space

Well, back when I used to teach, I always told my students: Do your ads in such a way one can see and understand them in a split of a second as they drive on the Dbayeh highway. Whomever did the Purell ad was not my student. It really says - too much. In too little of a space, even if the art direction is well done. But... 

OK hang in there: "Avoid the catastrophe" - it means do not shake hands or else 1) the titanic tattooed on one hand will hit the iceberg tattooed on the other 2) the cat tattooed on one hand will bounce on the bird tattooed on the other 3) (not present in the above photos) the shark tattooed on one hand will hurt the surfer tattooed on the other. Wait, there's more: there is also a disclaimer "stop cross-contamination sanitize your hands".

All this - as I said - to be understood, grasped, dissected in a split of a second. My two cents is that there has been too many meetings between agency and client, too many opinions went in there, and too much back and forth thought injected. For a much simpler campaign, yet one that works without being too much complicated, check the Santell ads (such as this one here or for stills this one here).

Independence Day, almost without an advertising whimper

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly from the series "No truce in Beirut (only virgins")

And so Independence Day came and went almost without a whimper. Apart from the ads I spoke of yesterday, I saw some posted here and there but nothing to write (home) about. The projected number that advertising will fall by 90% this year was obviously optimistic (Naji Boulos who came up with the number corrected it in July to 20 million, and that was before the August 4 explosion). The banking issues and the multitude of ways of presenting bills to clients only exacerbated the situation (this includes anyone who still takes contracts priced at 1500 to the Dollar, or those who accept Lebanese Pounds, or a mixture of Pounds and Lollars, or any combination thereof), without mentioning recruiters trying to snatch local creative talents for, literally, pennies under the guise of "fresh Dollars". Add to it the cost of reconstruction that fell on agencies following the Beirut explosion and you have the recipe of a total disaster. 

Notice I did not even mention Corona, which, despite a major spike in cases, still does not factor in (though technically we are on lockdown). Agencies within international networks are managing pan-Gulf accounts, independent ones are hanging by a thread, some migrated to other countries, others are still here but still unable to reopen their offices. On average, I speak of 40 ads on my blog during events such as Independence Day (from a much bigger pool I archive), this year companies almost did not bother. 

No one is to blame though. The public fed up, the economy imploded, the banks are laughing all the way to the bank (yes, I notice the irony of the expression), the mood is somber and morose. Beirut, even pre-lockdown (yet post-explosion) is a ghost town. Major shopping streets are empty, both from shops and shoppers.

All this, when Lebanese are even wondering what "independence" means. Log on to Twitter, follow the tag, and discover the schizophrenia of a country with multiple identities, affiliations, each antagonistic to the other. So here we are, a nation just like the puzzle above (made from two criss-cross puzzle maps of Lebanon found in a junk shop), we are unable to disengage, yet when the puzzle is put together it makes no sense.

In Lebanon, what back to school?

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

In certain countries, the back to school spending is one of the biggest non-holiday spending times. In Lebanon a little less so, but still, between books (often imported), clothes (often dictated and issued by school), stationary, and the ever increasing tuition, the money spent is gob-smacking. Am thinking mostly of non-governmental schools. For those attending government schools, the task is a little easier, but not by much. Usually these schools are frequented by a lower socio-economic class to whom the symbolic tuition and books make - proportionately - almost the same percentage of spending as those in the non-governmental ones. Do note, this is by no means stereotyping, because a good student is a good one, and a student wanting to learn will find a way to learn.

But between spiking Coronavirus rates, between the schools that vanished in the Beirut explosion (am hearing 130 schools), between the local currency that lost 80% of its value, between parents who either completely lost their job or are working for a meager pay or one which now means peanuts, I wonder what back to school season do we talk about? To go on, continue, and still be productive, is a colossal challenge in Lebanon. And sometimes, no, we do not have that energy.

Shtrumpf cooks up a nice ad

Well with ads so rare and in between these days it is great to see anyone doing anything, and so much the better, anything good. So it is a pleasure to see Shtrumpf, our local diner, dipping its ad in the current events sauce. "Well done quality, medium rare prices" - not just one wink, two winks. And they are both so effortless they actually work. Actually, with so many restaurants closing or shooting up their prices to cope with the current devaluation crisis, seeing Shtrumpf thrive or trying to keep abreast is actually a pleasure.

Babyshop - an advertising we deserve.

I am incredibly bored from those saccharine dipped ads I am bombared with daily that revolve around Coronavirus (all same, all boring, insert silly piano background). BUT...
Do you remember Babyshop? The brand that got you Umobuwah?
Yes, the multi-award sweeping Umobuwah.
Now they are back with a "world we deserve" and unsurprisingly, you will see that children are actually more aware, mature, and sensible than adults.
The genuine ad is here.
Zoom calls? Different countries? Honest opinions? Talk from the heart? Being sensitive to possibilities? Check, check, check! It is there, raw and promising and real.
In a world where parents are exhausted from homeschooling and from tripping over Lego parts and having to endure all such issues, Babyshop comes with a window of opportunity, a breath of fresh air.
Well, this is the kind of ad we deserve.
If not deserve, at least want.

Ad people: Now is the time to think small - again.

Photo Credit; Jana Traboulsi (a double play on "death to the capital" and "let the capital topple")

Covid-19 has blown the top on everything. Companies, budget, recruitment, shopping, spending, you name it - it is all in flux. People are divided in two camps the "this is the end" and the "this is the end and a chance to a new beginning". This is a blog that revolves around advertising, marketing, branding - mostly in Lebanon (though I do tend to go further afield at times). Lebanon has been facing the perfect storm: Corona, financial meltdown, capital controls, lack of liquidity, crashing budgets, closing companies, socio-political unrest, and and and.... Already prior to the Coronavirus outbreak estimates that there will be less than 100 million Dollar in ad spend this year were released by ad person Naji Boulos (whom I trust in opinion and figures).
Now that we are in a Coronavirus world that number will become a fraction of what it was. I know the livelihood of many people will be affected by it. A marketing manager at a major supermarket chain in Lebanon told me that it was the first time she saw people calculating their bill before getting to the cashier to avoid over-budgeting. People are looking in the trash in broad daylight in Lebanon. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is trying to save their penny.
Paradoxically, am glad idiotic advertising is over. All those corny ads are now gone. Army day? Put everything in camouflage. Valentine? Paint it red and add a heart. New year? Add fireworks. And on all occasions remember to make the logo bigger.
But as Watson (Lucy Liu) told Holmes (John Lee Miller) in that wonderful episode in Elementary: "What if we are looking at it the wrong way?" - I apologize in advance to all those whose lives have been affected by the turmoil. But was it not time for things to come to a screeching halt to assess and reorganize and regroup and downsize and prioritize and maybe cut down and shrink and "think small" (to go back to that eternal VW Beetle mantra)? I am glad the time has come.
With less, creativity flows, with limited resources we can produce more, without the excess we can be more agile.
Of course we could have done so without - as Dr. Nicole Herman said (brilliantly played by Geena Davis in Grey's Anatomy) - "recommending a brain tumor" or a Coronavirus for that matter. Yet as the Lebanese saying goes "if it does not get bigger it does not get smaller". And bigger it did go!
Now is the time to get smaller. Again.

Cablevision - Coronavirus

As per Cablevision text:

"COVID-19 patients spend their healing time at the hospital alone, without seeing any of their Loved ones for support. We stepped in to make a small difference, our way, by giving Patients and Medical staff at the Rafik Hariri University Hospital access to our main channels. Thank you to all our heroes on the front-line, working day and night to fight the virus and keep us all safe!"

That was indeed thoughtful!

Army - Coronavirus

Lebanese army joined the Coronavirus online with a well-shot film and a narrative about an enemy sweeping our nation (smart!) and how everyone's duty is to fight it etc... The images show an empty Beirut (I am assuming it was shot by drone), and in the end the tag #HoldYourGroundAtHome appears (the Arabic #مترس_ببيتك is better actually, it means "build your own barricade at home"). On the whole a good exercise. The question will always be how long will this last?

Rimowa - Coronavirus

There you go - an ad about social distancing and Coronavirus without dismantling the logo. Heck, without a logo to begin with - you'd know the product from its iconic shape. The Rimowa suitcase. The ad ran on instagram with a small line "for now we're still" - it helps the suitcase became a chair when it is known for its wheels. Really, a great ad which capitalizes on the product.  

Will the advertising industry survive the COVID-19?

Corona chocolate vintage ad from Egypt

Will advertising survive the COVID-19?
Simple answer: Yes it will.
More complicated answer: In what shape?
I know I usually talk about the ad industry in Lebanon which is being hit by problem after problem. But still, the Lebanese industry is heavily connected to the outside world. Be it through multinationals with international accounts or smaller independent agencies doing work for international clients etc. Already, with the digital starting to sweep everything, with clients building their own in-house teams, with companies asking advertising people for much more while they slash they yearly budget, with agencies fearing to lose their dwindling accounts, with the press (or what is left of it) is trying to scramble for the leftovers of what remains from the Google/Facebook advertising booking cake (digitally at least), with the whole confusion of who did what and when the ever-delayed payments will be made, all these factors are but a fraction of the problems that are surrounding a dying industry.
Well, I used the words dying industry on purpose, because if advertising knows how to do anything it is to resuscitate and reincarnate and take a new body and morph and change and begin from the vestige of what went before. In his book "Adland" Mark Tungate charts the history of advertising and you'd be surprised how many times the industry came back from the brink - radio? Still here, TV? Still here, Outdoors? One way or another still here, and so on and so forth.
Sure, if I see one more ad showing a logo disintegrating for the sake of social distancing am going to scream, and I read about one more agency "caring for its people and the mental health of their employees" am also going to scream. But when all the commotion subsides, there will still be an industry, likelihood it will be a more nimble and agile one.
One of the first ads according to Tungate was for a brothel, likelihood is that it was a self-agency ad.
Ad people are whores, I worked long enough in the industry to know.

Openminds - Coronavirus and autism edition

Pity there is no good way to translate this to English. Let me chop it down: "we7de" in Arabic means "solitude" or "to be alone", whereas "tawa7od" means autism. "To be alone is a necessity today. To fight autism is a necessity every day"! Boum! Excellent - naturally this comes with a video that at first glance one mistakes for a simple reading of the events in Lebanon today, until naturally one rereads it backwards to understand it correctly under the revealer's light. Excellent job - please see it here.

What Coronavirus has to do with right-hand driving in Sweden

Lifebuoy ad during the Spanish flu

On September 3rd, 1967 Sweden changed from left lane driving to the right lane driving. Prior to the move the government did a massive campaign to warn people of the switch. Fun fact: That day was the breakthrough performance of one young singer, Anni-Frid Lyngstad who won a talent competition live on TV (people were discouraged to drive that day so everyone was home watching television). Lyngstad would later become one of the As in ABBA insuring her place in the pop pantheon.
The campaign was so successful the accident numbers dwindled during the first years, then about four years later people became lax forgot about the switch and accidents rose again steeply.
What does this have to do with the Coronavirus?
I assure you, when all this commotion subsides people will forget the basic hygiene rules such as - washing hands. Do I do this 20 times a day? Surely not, but then again, those who are doing it now are the ones who almost never did it before. Just to be clear, it was the second wave of the Spanish flu/H1N1/1918 pandemic that wiped 50 million people - not the first benign appearance of that disease. Meaning it is the aftermath of the pandemic that is worrying me.
Again, in order not to appear hypocrite, I am not obsessed with hygiene - but again to be clear, I studied enough biology to know what I am saying.
Washing your hands is not just for these dire times.

Parazar - Coronavirus edition

Well, Parazar gets it right. It is not about you! You, the healthy, young, in love, the bride, groom, youngsters, bridesmaid, best man, the friends from university and colleagues from work... It is about your elderly parents who were waiting for your marriage, your grandmother who dressed up and who wore the family heirloom, your grandfather who put his special tie for the occasion - "so that we may celebrate again" let us stay home now. See the touching film here (taken from the Parazar real marriages they shot with permission).

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.

Milk Innovative launches Coronavirus initiative "Together Alone"

Is the Lebanese government handling the COVID-19 well? Yes. Should people be going out? No. Are they going out? Yes. Are they supposed to? No. Milk Innovative thinks so too. An they launched a great initiative compatible with the social media world to really convince people they should remain indoors. "Together Alone" or the Arabic "مفرد بالجمع"  is a lovely, timely, needed effort because. Only with collective effort will we be able to beat the virus and stop its spread.
Here is how it goes:
It’s a good day to shake off boredom, spread empowering vibes and encourage people to #JoinIsolation!
All you have to do, from your quarantine, is:
Soap your hand and wrist
Photograph it (Hey! You can get creative here indeed!)
Copy Paste this caption
Pass on the torch to 5 persons you tag
Share it
I pass the torch to (tag your buddies
Together, but not forever alone, we shall #shakecoronavirusoff!
Until we meet again
#TogetherAlone #UniteForLife

اليوم بدنا نكسّر الضجر, بدنا ننشر طاقة ايجابية وبدنا نخبر العالم انو #عالعزلة_مجتمعين !

كل شي لازم نعملوا, بالحَجِر, هو:

نرغي صابون عإيدنا والمعصم 

نصورها (هون اكيد فينا نفجّر مواهبنا!)

منعمل كوبي بايست لكابسيون

منعمل تاغ ل5 اشخاص تنسلّمن الشعلة

مننزّل البوست

..انا بسلّم الشعلة ل

سوا, واحد واحد, رح ننتصر عالكورونا لأنو #حياتنا_مسؤوليتنا! 

#مفرد_بالجمع

Krikita - Coronavirus

Krikita joined the Coronavirus fray. Known for its mixed nuts bags, krikia is no claiming "bala ikhtilat afdal" (better without mixing). Well, with agencies working in remote one can see why no ads are being created, so having an ad to any brand these days is nothing short of miraculous. So indeed stay safe and distant, and no mixing.

Sar Fina nodhar? (Can we break the quarantine?) - the site that gives you answers

Sar Fina nodhar?
Can we break the quarantine?
The site that gives you answers.
Please scroll though all the pages to get the possible yes/no answers to all situations. Thank you Patrick Chemali (no relation) for compiling all real-life answers and probabilities.

B.Khabsa: Coronavirus and Mother's Day

How about this for an exceptional ad. B. Khabsa jewelry is telling you not to buy from them! Why? Because your health is most precious for your mother, so postpone her gift and ensure your safety and hers.... Seriously a stroke of genius that gets two birds in one stone! Excellent.

AM Bank - Coronavirus edition

AM Bank has toyed with its logo in social distancing act influenced by the Coronavirus. The move is brilliant - OK to be honest I wonder if it was influenced by Slovene artist Jure Tovrljan which went super viral I know not. But the AM Bank attempt is a good one nontheless.

Mastercard - Jure Tovrljan