Why is Almaza doing ads without any strategy?

OK, someone needs to say it and I am volunteering to do it: Almaza has no strategy.

In their latest instalment - which is very lame - Almaza beer went for a silly concept. But that's after posting ads in French for "le mois de la francophonie" (with a typo mistake mind you because "fraîcheur" needs a "circonflexe"on the i- here) and after wining Picasso d'Or for what is honestly a baffling campaign (if it can be called so!). And they did some nice Fairouz gimmicks for winter (here), but not before remixing old ads (here), their ads for summer were OK (nothing to write home about - here), in the meantime they blundered through a photoshop fail (here), they did show a glimpse of how glorious they once were (here and here). So where does this lead us? 

As they gallop between Arabic and French (with a side of  English), as they ride between different linguistic gimmicks and odd visuals (the ones they did for the francophonie were a mile away from the one they did for the basketball win and a different mile from the winter campaign). There is just inconsistency everywhere - in visuals, in language, in executions. In short this is what I call the "spaghetti theory" - throw a bowl of spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks.

Pity, Almaza was - by far - at least in its Intermarkets days - the most consistent brand in terms of communication (I am discounting the bit when they moved to Leo Burnett). It stuck through a very clear white typography on a red background with a very witty copywriting linguistic trick. And it worked, it really worked. Now they are all over the place. Obviously no one bothered with any strategy - neither client nor agency. They are just going on day to day basis changing as they go along. Which is a pity. Yes, they won the Picasso d'Or - for what however, I know not.

A bit of strategy and organization never hurt anyone. And if in doubt about ethical or intellectual property issues (meaning with Intermarkets) the client owns the old ads simply by virtue of paying for them.

Trickle up: How micro work can spread to macro.

Artwork (and wording) by Tarek Chemaly

Well, the only thing I can claim the ownership of are the words "trickle up" - the rest are the result of a massive brainstorm that happened yesterday on a multi-participant discussion on facebook of all places (lockdown and geographical distancing oblige - Netherlands, Canada and Lebanon were online....).
And, I admit I was the party spoiler among the (more idealistic) crowd with my rational Cartesian thinking, however even behind my blasé facade my passion has always been too strong (I am the one that tells the story of the mad crowds who were revolting against the Danish caricatures who ended up burning Intermarkets the ad agency in the building next to the Danish embassy in Beirut because someone pointed them to the wrong building! Or the analysis why the Arab Spring failed - it did not produce electable candidates and it started off by wanting everything at once when all it wanted was an obscure "something else") .
My brother once told me "you do no know how to have small dreams" and true - one of the reasons that made me continue teaching between 2005-2019 at university level was this idea that one by one, student per student, change could be possible.
In 2001 I quit a lucrative career as a research consultant because at one point, I ended up quoting myself. I was doing a study for a major client and I realized the only previous study on the topic was done by myself and that nothing was "trickling down" to people, regular people whose lives might be influenced by the results of the work in question.
Most of us are familiar with the trickle down - social norms, peer pressure, conformity, standards to abide by of whatever shape. But I go back to the idea that was talked about in the discussion on facebook: Small, mirco acts can gather up to a tipping point and might - might - go to the macro level and produce a change with a capital C.
Here's hoping! Yet, till then, let us "trickle up"!