Project Watan goes out with an unremarkable campaign

This will be the winter of my discontent.... First Nahwal Watan, then Sawa Li Louban and now Project Watan (Mashrou3 Watal El Ensan) with the tagline "freedom - development - prosperity" (watch the ad here). OK so what else is new? Not much. Same thematic (corruption, poverty, lack of electricity, etc....) which everyone which anyone is riffing about. And the visuals? Honestly at this stage I am starting to think there is one agency (perhaps not even a local one, wink, wink!) which is producing all these prepackaged, monochrome, and repetitive messages. Honestly, at some point all these campaigns could be attributed to any of the advertisers in question (all you have to do is switch the logos!). When it comes to programs? Please, "change" and all other accoutrements that go with it. Frankly, why bother do anything if you are going to be so unremarkable?

Elections 2022, Sawa Li Lubnan - lackluster campaign

So the election advertising has started, first it was Nahwal Watan, now Sawa Li Lubnan. I do hope the policies these two are proposing are better than the election campaigns they are suggesting, because the latter are lackluster, dull and very unimaginative (thankfully in Lebanon, political advertising does not matter as I said earlier - see here). Still, such lowest common denominator ads should be - well - banned or unauthorized. Considering that Nahwal Watan still has remnants of its campaign still running, and now Sawa Li Lubnan - running concurrently is a tad too much. Of course, both are considered new political factions, whereas the major political parties still have not put their toe and are quietly gaining field momentum. The elections are supposed to happen in March 2022, but in Lebanon, rarely is anyone "undecided".

Elections 2022, Nahwal Watan - a parliamentary election avant-gout

And here we are - let the money-spending begin.

What saved the ad industry in 2018 in Lebanon was that - suddenly, money starting coming in due to all the advertising campaigns of political parties (you might wish to see the best and worst ads of the time here). And so here we are after the disastrous 2019, 2020, and 2021 for advertising agencies, money will soon come back again.

Actually, as I stated at the beginning of the post, it already has. The billboards are flooded with the ads of Nahwal Watan - if you like to meet them, go their website here. Please do note, this post is not an assessment of who they or what they stand for, but simply involved in the media/advertising angle. Well, what Nahwal Watan did is gain on the element of being early. While everyone else is still dormant they took over the scene with their presence, though I do wonder if they did it too early to be honest.

The other thing is that they went for generic run of the mill messages. Nothing groundbreaking - their tone is that of optimism (we shall not surrender, this time we will decide, people have decided change has started) but it is all dipped in mostly dark visuals. 

Well, whether or not Lebanon is living in a fate-changing moment politically remains to be seen though. I said it before (here) and will say it again: " The average Joe is just a culprit as anyone else. Because, and I have said this many times prior, corruption is not a one sided affair. It implicates more than one person. We have been cursed by a combination of crooked politicians but also by people who follow them, and the slogan everyone spit out on October 17 2019, "kellon ya3ne kellon" (everyone means everyone) basically meant "except the guy I follow myself"."