President goes to Paris and does not take you along.

All right, call me foolish, but the new President ad was... confusing to me. The main headline? "Enjoy Paris", well, silly me I expected a raffle draw, or a prize consisting of 2 tickets to Paris, or - you know - other ways to have a coffee a Flore at the expense of President. The smaller line? "with the taste of President", because really nothing is more anti-climatic than enjoying Paris while eating cheese in a country which is still reeling under the many ailments Lebanon is reeling, instead of offering me a ticket and a Schengen visa to boot. If was to enjoy Paris, it would not this cheesy way (pardon the pun).

Amour and a timely cheese ad

Well no one can accuse Amour cheese of not being timely. Right bang before Valentine's here they come. Amour obviously is "love" in French. The funny story behind it is that during Telex days Amour was code name for Amine Aour, the name of the company (and the person behind) who got the cheese into Lebanon. But again, sometimes timing does the trick and it did indeed with this.

Hajdu cheese goes on a pre-Christmas bang

I am not sure I need to explain the price of cheeses these days in Lebanon... So it is interesting Hajdu - considering it is important and will certainly be subjected to the new "import Dollar" value which has gone stratospheric - has decided to go on a large campaign to dominate the pre-Christmas market. The other option of course is that the importing company is trying to liquidate stock before it gets past the expiry date. No matter which option, suddenly the campaign is everywhere prior to Christmas (obviously a good seller for winter and festivity dishes) - and a small look on the Hajdu prices shows it is still within range of most other cheeses for the 200 grams sold portion (here).

This is where the campaign gets interesting, it seems Hajdu is offering a bigger panoply of products - spread cheese, happy squares, burger squares and singles as well. Which perhaps has inspired the slogan "goodness without limits" - of course the word "tibe" can also mean "taste" so they tried to hit two birds in one stone. (Apologies to the lady who appeared unwittingly in the ad however).

Puck goes back to school #PucktoSchool

You know how it is, a generation goes back to its first tastes. Puck has entered the Lebanese market for a long time now but what's with the economic crisis hitting - basically all or most households - consumers are refraining from "indulging". But if Puck is still not a leading brand it's not for the lack of trying.

Here they are with a new back to school ad which involves popular actress Liliane Nemri feeding the neighborhood children. The ad as does work - the casting is done right (not easy when children are involved) and you can see it here. Here's the thing too, this year Puck is giving 21 school scholarships to students in Lebanon worth 300 USD each (a healty amount by today's standards!) - see the terms here.

I am usually very cool about hashtags but #PucktoSchool makes a lot of sense!

Now how much will this help Puck gain in the Lebanese market is a different story.