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.

Car companies new logos: rebranding away from 3D

Well, when everyone does it, it is no longer a novelty. But it seems everyone is doing it out of necessity. After the bigtime fad of the 3D quasi-airbrushed logos for car brands, in the last few months, no less than 10 different brands have announced new logos (Volvo, Nissan, BMW, Mini, Dacia, Renault, Kia, Peugeot, VolksWagen, and Fiat have all went this route).

Actually, I also read somewhere that Audi has filed papers for a new logo very much in line with the ones presented in the image above. What is interesting is that in all cases, suddenly a new 2D logo has appeared. Truth be told, there are many elements of similarity with these brands' old logos from the 60s/70s. However, nostalgia is certainly not the driving element to be sure. Rather, it is the new social media. 

Let me give you this design secret, long time ago (that would be till 2010 or so), to make sure a logo worked, we used to put it on the smallest surface on which it will be printed - namely the business card, if the logo was still visible then it was acceptable. Today, the smallest surface on which the logo will be displayed is no longer the business card but your Instagram handle. And the less complicated the logo, the more streamlined, simple, 2-Dimentional, the more you have the possibility of being immediately seen by your audience as everyone is competing for eyeballs. 

However, in defense of the car brands, each one tried to keep its own identity separate as opposed to clothing brands who went almost anonymous with their new logos (for some odd reason major luxury houses have decided to go the let-us-all-look-the-same route). If you do not believe me look at the image below.

Nissan - flattening the curve in a smart ad.

Very smart and very minimal.

Says everything without saying anything all at once. Talks about its brand's usefulness yet still does it sleekly. And could perhaps be too sleek, too blink-and-you'll-miss it in a world of flashy ads. But still is a major refresher of a well-done ad looks like (even if, it could be too smart for its intended audience).

Ladies and gentlemen please meet Nissan Lebanon's own "flatten the curve" ad. It is lovely to see such ads approved, again, in the plethora of brands trying to outshine one another with very striking ads as they compete for the customers' and people's eyeballs, but personally I love that the ad was approved (and that even got created!).

Here's to more of this, perhaps Nissan would end up swaying a new breed of buyers once the pandemic ends - designers, architects, Mies van der Rohe fans....