"Forget about tomorrow, stay in Today" - a zero sugar chocolate with everything in Arabic except the name of the brand. A brand mind you that is a favorite of diabetics o of people wishing to diet or not gain weight, or damn me, people who like good-tasting chocolate. Today comes in different variations, and all of them good. Whereas the ad is not award-worthy, it fulfills what it came to do and does it very well if you ask me.
Remember Aïla? (here) Well, no longer the new kid in town. Interestingly, and I don't know how trademarked is that but LU already has a "Le Petit Ecolier" cookies (the small student). So Aïla doing this with the same name is a little, odd if not illegal (again, no idea if the name can be used). To give credit where credit is due the train idea is actually nice, what I don't understand is why "back to school is a dream". Dream for whom and in what sense? But then again perhaps the people targeted in this ad know better?
Domo seems to be serious. So serious they are introducing an incalculable number of flavors for their products and letting everyone know about it. Not that the campaign is sexy or anything but it is widespread and it does what it says on the tin - many, many flavors of the hot chocolate is now available. Interestingly my first reflex was to dismiss the ad as "overdone". The art direction is all over the place and there are too many conflicting messages on it - 38 cal per cup, 13 flavors, light, hazelnut, new flavor. But also, on second thought, whereas the ad is all over the place, it did make me look and now I want a Domo hot chocolate cup. See? It worked.
So there's a new chocolate in town! Aïla - yes with a ï rather than an i.
The campaign on OOH is humongous and covers almost all the coast. Which is interesting because it means their production is a serious affair. They even have a website - which of course ditched the ï in favor of an i - here.
It is a local made-in-Lebanon product which thankfully is a trend which is picking up as of late. I did not get to taste the chocolate yet, though there is a sugar-free version as I am diabetic. Their website is clear as to the presence of 7 different varieties along with 2 block options.
The ad itself says "a new love" simply to indicate the novelty and the taste. Even if I am told the chocolate has been present in the market for at least two years. Price wise I discovered it is sold at around 28,000 (at least by today's prices - here) for its 40 grams version.
So ads are creeping back to Beirut. Sure, not in the same frequency that was prior to October 2019 and the start of the "thawra" but there is a palpable improvement. Take Tola - the Nestle chocolate "produced in Lebanon" with the cute line "el 7elo byerkhaslak" (which means "we'd drop the price of what's sweet just for you" - a riff on a local expression). Now here's what's interesting, this is not the first time Tola enters the Lebanese market. At the time it was owned by Rowntree's before the whole company got bought by Nestle (including Kit Kat and Lion Bar - their star products). Don't believe me? How about this artistic treatment below of the original mid-80s ad?
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| Artwork by Tarek Chemaly |
