Let Meryl Streep go to Prada hell, or Zeit Boulos hell, or Roadster hell

 

In 2001 Rachid Daif wrote a novel "Tostofel Meryl Streep" which was translated as "Let Meryl Streep go to hell". So today I was made aware of an AI of Meryl Streep advertising Zeit Boulos which came back hot on the heels of Roadster using her image with the line from movie The Devil Wears Prada "Don't be ridiculous Andrea, everyone wants this" as she holds a Roadster meal inside a VIP seat in a cinema.

Need I go futher? Roadster and Zeit Boulos are small fish, no one cares about suing them. But this is beyond idiotic. Remember - Microsoft sued a teenage Canadian for establishing a company called Mike Roe Soft which is actually his name. Chasing name and likeness is truly a risky game and no, Meryl Streep would never license her image to some food chain in Lebanon or a company that does Lebanese "moune" (as Boulos oil is trying to rebrand itself - here). So where do we go from here? We go to what happened to the viral gender reveal where the "grandma" looked incredibly young and fresh.

Images below are for brands that used her likeness in ads without authorization:

The woman got plastered on ads for everything and anything. ArabAd asked in their post on Linkedin (here) "where do we draw the line?" my answer was "at decency". Naji Boulos, the current editor in chief at ArabAd replied to me with "The item you requested is currently not available online."

Surely "Teta" (grandma) can sue. But truly we are in an age where advertisers and brands should remember "just because you can, it doesn't mean you should".

Boulos, trying further to go out of olive oil.

Remember this piece about Boulos? (here). About how they are trying to branch out from their original "virgin olive oil" positioning which they hammered people with for decades? Well, it seems they are trying further bless their heart. Somehow though between "60 years" "new look" and the product(s) the ad is all but single-minded. However, and I still stand by this, the step between olive oil and home products (pomegranate molasses in this case) is not only small, but marketing-logical. So to me it all makes sense (oddly, and also as I said prior, Castania going from nuts to peanut butter was an oddity - here). Now, Boulos realizes its previous "error" and now says "not only oil but (insert product) too", knowing this is the original idea people associate them with. Still, a good move.

Boulos - on expanding a stuck identity

For years and years, no make that decades and decades, Boulos hammered us - as consumers - as "zeit Boulos". Boulos oil - extra virgin olive oil. I am not here to debate the quality of their product but you can't stick around in the market that long (apparently 60 years) without proving how good you are.

Actually, for a short while they even went "hip" when Basketball player Boulos Bechara was playing for the Sagesse team in 1999 and won the Asia Champions Cup which presenter Tony Baroud called "Boulos Boulos Boulos" due to his 3-pointers, so they signed Zeit Boulos Boulos Boulos to get on the hype.

On the whole though they played it conservative. Advertising their product eventually coming up with the "iza de2et 3le2et" line (if you taste it, you're stuck), a local expression about tasting anything well-made.

Now Boulos are trying to expand. Their ad literally says "not just oil, but the whole mouneh of the house". Mouneh is a Lebanese term of all edibles people used to prepare before the advent of winter and stock them up in the coldest room in the house to sustain them through the winter months. 

For Boulos, this is a double-edge sword, on the one hand the reach between olive oil and other homemade products is not a stretch, on the other, it has built its identity around the oil (I think at one point the whole company's name was zeit Boulos but I stand corrected) that it might be difficult to get the consumer to think of them as anything else.

It reminds me of Mentos a bit. Mentos was definitely built around the mint flavor, but the success let them to do a "strawberry" flavor... Which seemed odd as a name. 

Boulos is certainly trying to expand its "homemade" line, so here's hoping the consumers are ready to think of it more than just oil.

Zeit Boulos - now online

Zeit Boulos can now be ordered online. The interesting part? They managed to do a pitch perfect continuation of their - eternally running campaign. By eternally running I mean - and whereas I have no specific date in my archives - this goes back to 1998 or so.
OK, the line? "Iza de2et 3le2et" (once you taste it you get hooked up) dates back to the 90s (to my shame my first recording of it in 2012). Just for the advertising anecdote, the brand changed the line briefly with "Zeit Boulos, Boulos, Boulos" in honor of Lebanese basketball player Boulos Bechara's performance as partof the Sagesse team that won the first Asian title for Lebanese teams in 1999 - again for the reference it was Lebanese presenter Tony Baroud (himself an ex-basketball player) who initiated the "Boulos, Boulos, Boulos" catchphrase. Otherwise? A yellow background with an oil bottle was just the campaign since... forever.
So now that we established the credentials of the campaign, for their online - they added "heik heik 3ele2et tloba online" which translates as "now that are hooked might as well ask for it online". Again, the consistency of the campaign, which is almost unchanging as I said is truly remarkable. Because at this point, beyond the idea if the campaign is nice or not, it is simply "there" - immediately recognizable, totally in-your-face, and comforting to know it does not change.