Potatoes are more expensive than OOH prices in Lebanon!

Photo credit: Geoana Hobeiche Massabni

"I was told that the price of booking a campaign outdoors is now potatoes" I say.

My friend - who basically runs an agency - answers with "no, potatoes are more expensive! We have booked campaigns that cover the Jounieh-Beirut highway for X". My jaw dropped, I knew the prices were low, very low, but X is unheard of. No wonder agencies are going for their scrapping of the barrel creatively in order to just put anything outdoors. But as I said recently, is this win-win when you are damaging the brand?

The answer is: I don't know. By this I mean - I feel the consumer does not care about the ad to begin with. Stuck in traffic jams people look at their social media messages on their phones, rarely does anyone look up and observe around them. Also, as I said recently about Rifai - as soon as people see the logo, they don't care about the rest of the design. "It's Rifai, I know it, I used to buy it, I can afford the price of this entry-level item from their many products, I am going to buy it again". Will anyone really scrutinize the bag? I sincerely doubt.

All of this seems to be me shooting myself in the foot considering I write about communication at large and advertising specifically. But compare this, to this. Beirut Beer "bil chamset bass mich bil beit" (in the sun but not at home) to Magnum "Find your summer". I have nothing against Beirut Beer, on the contrary, when they found their footing I was really cheerleading for them (here and here), but one thing is sure - that TVC they did does not translate into a billboard. And yet, what do you find on the streets?

Exactly.

With such low prices most brands are throwing creativity out the window, long term consumer investment, anything resembling a strategy, for the sake of these half-baked ads we are seeing. Somehow, I still feel that in the back of the minds of people, they will remember brands that stood out. Right now, in Lebanon though, I am not seeing much of it.

But I still have to buy potatoes for food.

Ministry of Telecommunications - International dialogue day OOH goes all out

Now that's sexy. All right first off remember the Ministry of Telecommunications international dialogue day TVC which went out yesterday? (see here) Well apparently the boys and girls at TBWA\Raad went all out in their OOH (Out of Home) for the same campaign.

OK, just to be fair and even-handed, we seem to be looking at two distinct concepts. As if the client couldn't decide which and went with both, simply because the outdoor campaign is totally unrelated to the TVC we just saw. Because the OOH references directly the political deadlock hitting Lebanese specifically the fact that we have no president for the republic since October 2022. The campaign basically gives political archrivals each other's phone so as for them to initiate a dialogue and get passed the stalemate.

Samir Geagea/Gibran Bassil, Paula Yacoubian/Ali Hassan Khalil, Walid Jumblat/Nabih Berri, Sami Gemayel/Wafik Safa.... So the idea is to share each other's number and start the dialogue! Yes, the campaign could have easily translated into a TVC so it is interesting they went for the second concept as a TV ad (which, to repeat, was quite fun). Interestingly, the agency actually got these numbers from the Lebanese cell phone companies and sent them to the politicians in question with a manifesto urging them to actually start the much-needed talk.

Well, of course, ads are not supposed to have an impact on the ground, specifically not in a complicated country such as Lebanon where change - if it ever happens - takes forever. But hey, the campaign is indeed nice.

Tinol, typos to serve a smart concept.

Well, it seems Tinol Paints changed their tune from last year's campaign (here). And it seems they have gone political. The new campaign which has several visuals really asks the questions about "where is (and insert a false promise we were given prior)?" - from "festive country" to "brilliant Lebanon" to "vibrant nights" to "attractive smile" or "colorful spirit" going through "shining Beirut", you name it is there. It is interesting for Tinol to have gone that route. And even more interesting there is a typo in every billboard, why? Well, because they insist "it is time to put things in place". The campaign is soooo blink and you'll miss it, which makes it even more clever in my dictionary. 

February's empty billboards in Lebanon

With regards to those empty billboards. Whereas it is January that is considered the dead month in advertising, considering companies spent their marketing budgets on Christmas and New Year's, and they are coming up for new strategies and budgets, it is actually February that hit the mark in Lebanon. It is strange to see billboard after after billboard with torn ads, revealing previous incarnations, some of them going back to the elections last May, or to the World Cup, or to campaigns already gone by. But here they are, layers on top of layers of old, sun-beaten campaigns, which intermingle on top of one another. With little or new additions, revealing more and more the depth of the crisis and yet advertisers seem either willingly or unwillingly oblivious of this (as show in my very long editorial for ArabAd here). When just two new small campaigns hit the streets in a full month, it tells you how bad things are - despite the upbeat messages advertisers want you to believe.

Tide - when we have to rely on advertising to light up the streets

The other day I had to go from Sassine square to Monot - a trip normally that takes 20 mins on foot. It took around 105 minutes for me to get there. Why? Because Achrafieh was - post ABC mall - completely plunged in the dark. What's with government electricity coming at barely an hour a day, and generators only covering apartments (with exhorbitant prices so the residents pick and chose which rooms to light), I almost tripped twice, thankfully found a hair salon still open to at least "see" something in a dark street.

All this is to tell you that Tide has actually instigated billboards that light up - and if this is not a sore need in Beirut at this point I have no idea what else is. So the billboards which alternate other ads during the day became exclusive to Tide starting 7 PM - an idea which came about from our friends at Leo Burnett Beirut.

Of course, when advertising brings lights to streets in Beirut it basically tells you of how things are lacking on all respects.

Pimo does a great job with Milton tablets

To add to Lebanon growing woes, please meet Cholera. Which is why Milton tablets are on to the rescue. 

I said that prior but would repeat it - in 2005 you needed about 600 billboards to make your campaign visible among the clutter. Today barely a dozen make you seen. Which is why seeing how Pimo went above and beyond in their OOH for Milton tablets is a great surprise indeed. They could have established their client's presence on the down-low and still managed to remain visible. But indeed, they actually tried to really be creative - and it worked! Not a mean feat when the medium is already tried and tested. But as I said, the effort is rewarding indeed. And did you notice they did the effort to treat the wall too?

Truly, nice touches everywhere.

Blue lace vodka - another spirit dropped at the end of the year

Remember I already spoke about how new alcohol brands suddenly appear at the end of the year (here), add Blue Lace vodka to the list (here). I have an unfounded feeling that Blue Lace and Blak whisky are somehow related (same distiller? same importer or distributor?) because somehow there at least some creative thinking behind both - naming, branding, packaging, and yes both are getting ads (apparently black as I said got some TV media whereas Blue Lace is just OOH (out of home) and digital).

Blue Lace is going with the idea of "break the ice" - all right, this is a little stretching the double meaning - but it goes both ways as in "getting to know people" and "well, breaking some ice to add to the alcohol cup" (which in the visual are more like icebergs).

Advertising goes back slowly to OOH in Beirut

The Spinney's trolley

Hmmm ads are back slowly in town on billboards. Whereas said billboards were covered with white paper in January and February, they appear now with several campaigns which advertised, not in full force, but not on a couple of billboards either. What is even more interesting is that the fact that the ads were mostly from fast food chains advertising fish-based menus for lent (without using the word as they skirt around the issue every year) but actually while reusing last year's creative ads. Obviously the creative input of their agencies was not needed this year. Or perhaps the cut-down budget was directed towards media buying. Just to be clear, this isn't business as usual yet, but a jump from the bleak October 2019 to February 2020 period which was total and complete crisis. Pictured above is the Spinney's trolley on Dbayeh (which was in the Guinness book of records) and which for decades was a Pepsi ad placement surrounded by white curtains waiting for the market to pick up again.