Xtra waking up with the house on fire with a teaser-revealer

Another teaser-revealer, this time the culprit is Xtra, the juice brand which has been missing from the airwaves for a long while (speaking of airwaves it seems the jingle is great on the radio, but did not hear it myself). Now I tried to long in to social media but seriously, Xtra is almost non-existent (their intsagram account is actually new! here). In other words the ad, the jingle, nothing is out there apart from billboards. 

So to go back to the ad, they go with the popular expression (to be honest not so popular these days!) "tibrid tibrid tibrid ta3" (tibrid is short for... ta3 bawred - come and refresh yourself and ta3 means "come"). So the revealer is the continuation of the expression "ta3 bawred, ta3 bawred, ta3 bawred, ta3".

So here we are - Xtra is a bit late in the game and trying to catch up. How this will translate on the ground is a different story though. Interestingly, Xtra is lower price that higher end brands like Maccaw or Libbys so perhaps it is a fighter brand and with all Lebanese trying to save a buck it might resonate with them.

So 3anjad ma badda hal2ad... turned out to be... a song?

Remember this? (here) It turned out to be that! (here), a Ministry of Tourism campaign it seems in the shape of a song by Dany Chamoun. The idea - apparently - is that Lebanon is full of wonders in the smallest space possible (though obviously for security reasons, the areas covered in the video clip were simply swatches of Kesserwan so far relatively out of the line of fire - you know cable cars, Casino Du Liban, Christ the King, Our Lady of Lebanon, the views from the sea) and obviously for good measure a lot of stereotypes (the only surviving Mercedes Ponton taxi, the VW Camper, the old stone houses, the tabboule, and all else). Production wise, well, we've seen all of this before in ads (am thinking Byblos Bank (here)) and even video clips (the immensely visually beautiful "Ya Osas" for Julia - here - which minds you dates back to 1994), this does not negate a good production value - even if the song is a little ho-hum (but what do I know? Maybe this is what is au courant these days). Perhaps the video is destined to expats and people who might or might not be planning to return this summer to Lebanon where the situation is always up in the air.

I am eating my words, finally a teaser worth its salt

I am eating my words (here). After bashing teaser ads left and right, now I am... Intrigued! Well, finally a campaign that makes me wonder "so, what's the product" - recover like you mean it, when life gives you lemons do not add sugar, less crash more comeback - unlike the Spinneys which was a dead giveaway, the other campaigns raised eyebrows but not interest, this one was done really well. Sleek layout, several messages, actually it exists in two colors - the blue and the yellow - and with several copy sentences that make you guess but not exactly say anything explicitly. Well, at some point, after all the fiascos we have been subjected to, at last a campaign worth its salt. 

For advertising "money's too tight to mention" yet everyone is squandering it

Above, the latest idiotic, stupid, uninteresting, corny, run-of-the-mill, non-inspiring teaser ad to hit town. If you are looking for more, please check here. Apart from the lack of logic - such as this great ad here which was ruined by a teaser - my other problem is that clients argue about things as small as 10 USD, ask for a lot to be done with ultra minimal budgets, want to review anything ten thousand times for free, want to have their wives' or girlfriends' (should I say and?) opinions to be registered, get moody, unpredictable, even when the ad is already at the printers or scheduled online suddenly the green shirt must be blue, and examples can go on and on. Long story short, for a company that is trying to squeeze its buck to the maximum allowable, why they are throwing it out the window on silly teasers - forget what agencies are saying that they are "the talk of the town" and what not - when they could get better coverage without imposing these 80s gimmicks on us. To quote Nike in their legendary Atlanta 1996 ad "don't insult our intelligence. Tell us what it is, tell us what does, and don't play the national anthem while you do it." (here).

Advertising agencies think they are smart. To quote that episode of Who's the Boss when Angela tried to explain to her mother Mona why there is a bubble gum dispenser in her advertising agency "it says we are unique and original, mom every company has one". So, here's a message to ad agencies: No, the public does not exactly await your revealers, people are tired, pseudo-broke, living in a literally war-torn country, so no one exactly is focusing on your money squandering so that you and the client self-congratulate yourself.

So to quote the latest teaser to hit town, "really, it's not worth this much hassle". True, it is not. Save your pennies, and save our patience which is running out.

Baroud Kariche, a nice ad ruined by its own stupidity

Remember this? (here). Well, perhaps not because apart from marketing teams going "got the whole town talking" and other press release platitudes, no one really cares about those silly teaser/revealers. The problem? This one was actually a nice ad. Really. Why they had to dilute it with a corny teaser is beyond me. I mean the whole "did we invent gunpowder?" (because "Baroud" means gunpowder) - well, the answer is a rather "we didn't invent gunpowder, kariche.. in a new form" (for those who do not know ariche is a creamy tender cheese done with no fat milk whereby vinegar is added to separate the serum) the trick is that the brand is called "Baroud" (a family name in Lebanon). So altogether a fun, decent ad but they had to blow it with a stupid teaser. Pity, because the end product - the ad not the kariche - is actually quite decent.

Enough with your unneeded teaser-revealer ads

The 80s are back - well minus Naf Naf, Sebago, Rubick's cube, Transformers and Studio Line (because everyone wanted to sculpt their hair!) - at least on the Lebanese ad front, they are. Why? Here's some samples - here, here, here, here, here, here. The common link? Teaser and revealer ads. People, please! Here's the thing, if you believe the marketing teams behind these disposable ads, they all (and I am quoting from Linkedin) "ensued a frenzy", "became the talk of the town", "were on everyone's lips", and I go on endlessly.

Even as someone who has worked in the field since forever, I can promise you this: No one gives a damn, no one cares, the country and its people are grappling with more problems than anything logical, everyone is incredibly price sensitive in all sectors, breadwinners (no matter their gender) are trying to see how to best allocate meager incomes, and you know what? Your silly teaser of an ad is of no one's interest, and even if it was, it fails at the end point. By end point, I mean converting targeted audience to shoppers.

Middle class people are not going to rush to some mega-market, or choose a brand of paint because of specific model, and the examples go on and on. And guess what? There is another teaser in town. Because of course, we don't need it and they still think it will end up "on every lip". Yes, sure...

Sande - the teaser/revealer we did not need.

Image credit Reva Berbari

Some say it was a stroke of genius. Others - OK fine, just me - are tired of corny teaser/revealer ads. People we are no longer in the 80s for heaven's sake. But hey, it seems brands love it (for a mysterious reason!). So here we are: Sande. The name is beautiful to be clear, the packaging much less so. Sande means some sort of a back up, or someone to have your back. And it is a very fitting name for croissant, chocolate cream pie, cheese sandwich or anything else you have as a filler (the name of the brand is byte apparently and they have been in the market for more than a year but sales were very sluggish). Now, here's the question: if they did a regular ad without teaser/revealer would they have had the same impact? I personally think they would have, the line is strong enough to have carried the ad without paying for 2 ads at once.

Some teasing in black and yellow (updated)

Source

Interesting. Teasing, again. I thought this would be relegated to the distant past but seems not. In black and yellow, the billboards are - literally - bursting with copy. Copy larger than life. "This billboard is too small for us" (also available in "board" format), "Wiiiiiiiiiiiider experience", "Beyond this space", "upgrade/enhance/level up/raise your experience", "Antelias make room" - the last one is actually a clearer pointer because it seems a certain supermarket is having a new branch in the area (Spinneys here's looking at you). In other news, the 80s called and want their teaser/revealer ads back.

Update:

And to no surprise to anyone, it was Spinney's. 

Abaad - still believes in teaser/revealer...

Wow, the 80s called and they want their teaser/revealer back. But here we are, another November/December and Abaad (as well as Kafa!) are both on unipoles and billboards and digital OOH. Well, a friend and myself have a theory how come they choose these times specifically when other billboards are a bit more Christmassy... We think it has to do, not with visibility or awareness, but rather with spending donor budget before the end of the year. I went back to my archive, and it is amazing that both Abaad and Kafa both show up in force in November and/or December - no matter the year. Still - the other issue with this ad? A teaser/revealer. Seriously? And the issue is that the revealer was poster while the teaser was on so many other billboards. Yes, as if confusion is not enough. So - to recap: The teaser goes #name_it_right (in triplicate in the same space!) and the revealer goes "no concealing, this is not an assault on dignity, it is a sexual assault, #name_it_right to judge it correctly" and in smaller character "change the sexual assault law". 

Well, yes, the ad does try to say a lot - if we add to it the picture of the scotch-taped woman (which could have come from the Paris Fashion Week but am digressing), with a lot of words attached, but also - as mentioned - a teaser/revealer as well.

Blusky Properties - on redefining math

Well, who knew teaser/revealer still existed? Well, to some it does. So apparently 1+1+1=1. I saw this a while ago but hey even with time the revealer was still in place (we are talking months apart). But it turns out Confidence (1) + Trust (1) + Expertise (1) = Blusky Properties (1). Well, so much for good math. But again, I thought it was funny people - still - resorted to teaser/revealer practices because these assume people actually do pay attention and anticipate, which - newsflash - they do not.

Panda Boutique - a cute but confusing campaign

Panda Boutique by Panda Plast has a cute new campaign, if a little too... confusing.

Apart from the fact they used the teaser/revealer which implies the same people need to see the original ad and then discover what it was all about, and right now both teaser and revealer ads are sitting at the same time on the Jounieh highway which is a little odd (but this is what happens when one books with different agencies which work at different speeds).

The major oddity in the campaign is the slogan of the revealer - "bnoss Jounieh" (right in the middle of Jounieh) which is the name of the yearly festival initiated by the Jounieh municipality (here). So I am wondering if Panda is involved in any way in the festival or not - although honestly, maybe they ought to have stuck to their original line "I saw a Panda in Jounieh" which headlined the teaser.

Considering Panda Boutique several branches, this is not some line they can stick to everywhere. But I guess they were trying to grab attention.