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?

Tahaab Rais leaves FP7 McCann - behind the press release

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

Well there you go - Tahaab Rais leaves McCann as head of strategy MENAT. If you want to read the official version, please go here. I have spoken of Tahaab several times on this blog (here, here, here, and here as examples) - now here's the thing: Tahaab and myself never met. I started speaking about his work and praising it without even so much of a private discussion anywhere. But just to be transparent - we ended up connecting via Linkedin where we sporadically talk, and yes, after news fell about his leaving (something I suspected to be honest on our last discussion). But there you go - he is leaving FP7 & McCann. To say this is a loss would be a total understatement.

The reason I say so is because Tahaab, just like me, never saw this as a "job" or as a "source of income". I know so because we discussed this often. The above-and-beyond things we do, the things not very Orthodox that we end up executing while other people thought we were not-right-in-the-mind. Shooting in the snow? Working in silly budgets? Working on days off? (What days off?)... But again, when you are guided by values, not just money, you materialize ideas - you make things work, you are able to summon something out of nothing. I go back to the "stories from Mecca" Tahaab came up with while in total covid lockdown. He was able to produce a incredibly powerful ad - with literally zero budget for Almosafer. Only someone supremely dedicated, creative, resourceful can do that. Over-stuffed creative directors (and damn me if I do not know at least two dozens!) would have scoffed at the thought. You know what kind I speak of - the ones about whom the quote from Thelma & Louise film applies "you could park a car in the shadow of his ass" or his ego. Or both.

I have had a very long conversation with Tahaab now, and we spoke heart to heart without artifice or words which usually go in press releases. I still think there will be beautiful things that would come from him, and that's lucky for us - pity FP7 would not be at the receiving end of such things.

The brilliant "Emirates Constellation" by Emirates NBD

Straight from the mind of Tahaab Rais from FP7 McCann MENAT who gave us Ramadan Spirit, Stories from Mecca, a dad's job, and Stuck among other jewels, comes a new insta-classic... The Emirates Constellation... An Emirates National Day without boring song and dance? You better believe it... So the UAE is a country that has shaped its way to the top, with nothing but ambition and determination along the way. So, on UAE’s 50th National Day, Emirates NBD celebrates the country, its leadership, its people, and its future, in a way that suits this great nation. "Today, we raise the nation brand of the Emirates to where it deserves to be - among the stars." So says the nicely written text to go along the idea.... And well, now that it's out there, as the French say "il fallait y penser" (one simply had to think about it!).... See the ad here.