Tuesday, November 6, 2007

It takes every kind of ads to make the world go round







The mish-mash on the Lebanese scene continues, some politics here, some had-sell there, and the inevitable "are they lying are they not" ethics....
First the "Khalas" campaign - khalas means "enough!" - which invites the general populace to ask the politicians to stop their "provocation", to stop "the status quo" and the "crisis". Interestingly, there is another association called "bikaffi" (Which also means "Enough") - why there are two claming the same thing is a mystery proper to the Lebanese psyche of non-teamwork!
The second ad is one of the rare copy-based ads in town, it is by greenpeace and talks about (My own English transposition "the Meditterranean s(h)ea(t)" - to their credit their Arabic take (Simply changing one letter) transforms the Meditterranean sea into filthy Meditterranean.
The thrid one could take years of argument before deciding how ethical it is. Beirut is full of necrology papers that the deceased family would post on walls to inform friends and acquaintances of the date of the funeral and all that... On top of one such paper someone glued a small ad which advertizes a ceramic imprint of the dead person to be put on his or her tombstone - the imprint in question is guaranteed to be weather-proof!... Someoone found a niche marketing and is advertising it to the target audience fiercely.
The fouth ad, whereas minimal in concept is one of the freshest ads to hit town and a far cry from all the doom and gloom everyone else is promising us!... Spinney's one of the leading local supermarket chains is celebrating its ninth birthday with free gifts to consumers. Simple ad, uncopmlicated concept, bright and attractive colors - normally its visibility would have been next to nil, but viewing that is now competing with depressing ads, suddenly it shone bright and looked just the ad everyone would love.
Last but not least the "Subway" franchises ads... "More taste less fat"... So far so good. But a look at the billboard will reveal a very, very tiny font that the amount of fat is calculated upon certain restrictions and that adding cheese and condiments (Especially mayonaise) would increase the fat content in the portion, etc... But all of this in very small typo which makes it difficult to read even standing beneath the billboard!

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