Rim, forgets single-minded messages.

Photo credit Mohamad Haidar - I had mine but Mohamad had better colors

There's so much going on here. A canned water, with lemons, giving you pure sensations, all of this in the realm of a small billboard right on top of the Rim water building. If I did not have time to process this later at home, I am not sure I would have understood anything of what was offered. Still, I have no idea if this a new category introduced in the market, and if so at what pricing considering the Lebanese customer at large is still incredibly price-sensitive. Sure with less clutter this could easily be salvaged but sadly Rim fell into the let's=insert-as-much-info-as-possible gimmick so much they lost their own footing.

Johny Water the homegrown creativity that works.

Remember this earlier this day? (here). Well try the above for size.

Brilliant. Nothing else. Just brilliant.

Aquafina - and the Al Shouf cedar nature reserve

Well, you know some ads just don't need much explaining because well, they make basic sense? "From the Al Shouf cedar nature reserve. To your house" - "the water source". There - plain, simple, easy and damn effective. Sometimes I wonder why brands just don't admit that easy does it. I see so much convoluted "creativity" which is not so, and which leads nowhere, and which adds little to the brand positioning and value. All for the sake of some sophomoric word-play or photoshopped image beaten till death. When frankly, an ad like Aquafina makes total sense.

On that perfect 1978 Naas ad.

All right color me jealous.

Look at this beautiful, perfect, wonderful ad for Naas bottled water from 1978 by H&C (then it later became H&C Leo Burnett). What's there not to love, the incredible copy? The authentic ad? The simple but meaningful visual?

Let me translate: 

"Sport. Pickaboo. Lunchbox. Naas.

Your son plays, runs, jumps, climbs, screams.... sweats - he is your champ!

And to keep his ever-flowing vigor, you make sure what kind of chocolate he eats, and you oversee his nutrition with tenderness. But do you know that what kind of water he drinks is no less important than what food he eats?

Naas is a pure water, easily digestible, bottled carefully, and it takes its strength from nature and gives it to your son to procure him enriching minerals such as Calcium, Magnesium, Iron and Potassium... All these are required by the body, to insure equilibrated growth and to fully renew the cells in the body.

Naas on your table, is the sparkle of energy in the eyes of your son."

Swoon, totally!