I have no ikea!

I have been spotting it for years now, but I never really thought about what brought this IKEA logo to the side of a parking lot in Ashrafieh... The Swedish furniture and lifestyle items manufacturer would never break even financially in Lebanon (Lebanese rarely move houses, almost never change their furniture, and the expat-flood that makes the bread and butter of the brand in the gulf is lacking here) , and yet for a number of years now someone painted the logo there (Actually, there are two of them). Where did it come from? I have no ikea!

SNAturally silly

Insurance giant Allianz has partnered with the solid Middle-East [Lebanon-based] SNA network (Societe Nationale d'Assurances) to give birth to an insurance giant covering the region.... But instead of depicting a fusion of mighty forces to convey their "The power on your side" selling line (Reminiscent of Star Wars if you ask me!) the went to the silliest symbols there ever is: Two keys in a key chain, two paper clipped with one handle, and a third execution with two sides of a wool jumper buttoned with a SNA-Allianz button.... If this is is power on my side, then I'd rather walk away from it!

Un-single minded

Rifai nuts - premium taste (But in a blind survey conducted came out second after Hamasni) and distorted ads. Once more TBWA/Rizk graces us with a multi-language, mutli-message, confusing ad. Al Rifai started with "Drives you nuts" which was cute but alienating to the Arabic speaking audiences who can afford their low end products (The most upscale of Rifai costs 22 USD per kilogram), so this changed to "Kil habbe bi kil mahabbe" (One of the usual words plays in which TBWA/Rizk specializes in and which means "every kernel done with all the love.") The TVC that accompanied the campaign had no concept whatsoever, and judging by how much the cast resembled one another, there's a tendency to believe that it was a mere excuse to show the Rifai offsprings more than anything else.

Now, for the holiday campaign (One of the strongest nuts and kernels selling seasons) the selling line has become "Hal habbe habbetna" (This kernel is ours, and also doubles as: This kernel fell in love with us), which is boring as all hell. Of course, why the headline would be in French whereas the selling line in Arabic beats me, and trying to make the "almond-shape eyes" remind us of almonds and cahsew nuts refer us to smiles is truly a rock bottom in terms of concepts - but at least this time they dispensed the Rifai children from gracing the billboards.

Maybe, the Rifai toddlers were shooting the new TV ad that would go with the campaign - a TVC still not aired during the holiday season - and which was replaced by a very old version which sported the selling line "Drives you nuts." So much confusion and inconsistency in the image does drive one nuts, I must say!

The second photo is about my highschool basketball team - one that competed in the McDonald's world championship (After winning the Asian Basketball cup). But as usual, politics tends to interfere in everything in Lebanon, including sports. To cut a long story short, the team is now headed by a media giant (Mr. George Chehwan) and seeing how few fans are supporting the team these days (As opposed to the masses who used to flock in the golden days - with many waiting in the rain outside to see if there were black market tickets) a campaign of envigoration was due (It is to note that since Mr. Chehwane has an access to free billboards and that the current climate is not encouraging advertisers to plaster themselves, the availability of the space was too tempting), and so the product was: A fan-tastic team. Emphasizing that what makes the team so great are the fans.... But is it a fan-tastic ad?

Nevermind pitying THIS nation!

"Pity the nation...." who hasn't read this discourse from Gebran Khalil Gebran's "Prophet"... There was one brilliant moment in Lebanese history when - love him or loathe him - came an unmatched orator who even managed to add a meaningful sentence to it: General Michel Aoun, who at the time was head of the military cabinet in 1989. The sentence he uttered was "Pity the nation that scrifices its youth for the sake of its elderly" (Wayloun li oummatin todahhi bi chababiha min ajli chibiha)... Now, several years down the line the Otv - Aoun's official TV - which is launching its first ever grid of programmes came up with an ad campaign nothing short of genius: In their fiction work about Gebran himself entitled "The rebel angel" they headlined "Pity the nation that watches for what it does not produce." An attack to subtle on all those betting on Egyptian and Syrian drama in addition to Mexican dubbed telenovelas (And believe it or not, Korean ones!).
The other program is called "Al hakika" (The truth), ever since the assassination of late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on February 14th 2005, the word in itself has been monopolized by the Hariri backers (The political current that opposes with Aoun daggers drawn - hopefully so far a metaphoric sentence rather than a real discription (Albeit with some exceptions to some sporadic incidents)), and so with the Otv reclaiming the word - and I bet giving it a new meaning, one cannot but sigh at the smartness of it all.
Pity the nation? No, not really, save it for another one that doesn't have such brilliant minds at work!

2008: Space oddity

To start off the new year these two bewilderingly uncomprehensible campaigns: USAID and Aizone... The first as a friend of mine said "is like seeing an ad for Iran". Supposedly, the stunt of advertising USAID should go hand in hand with improving the image of that country... With the Zogbi polls showing how dramtic the image of the US has slumped (Particularly in Arab nations), the effort is laudable but borderline risible!...
As for Aizone, I am still trying to figure out what the campaign "life2.0" stands for - is it a take on secondlife.com? Is it a parody of last year's "I love life"? Is it this or that? I tried to look for a manual of instructions underneath the ad, there was none. Of course, put a Saarinen tulip chair in any ad and the result will come out stylish, fururistic and modernist, so there's no extra points for the wonderful props... Maybe, to understand it, I should go out more often or get a life. Or make that get a life2.0 ....