Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Zajal copycat

Thank you Karl Zeenny for taking the Home City photo... Which is an ad that is too close for comfort with the Nissan ad also based on Zajal (or traditional Lebanese singing). So from the above photos, we can deduce:

1- That Beirut/NTSC is paranoid seeing similarities where there are none.
2- That I am not being paranoid - just have a good assimilation
3- That the two ads have nothing to do with one another
4- That the Clementine ad is stolen from the other
5- That Clementine did some incredibly bad research
6- All of the above (no matter how contradictory)
7- None of the above
I am not sure of the correct answer, but for my money the conclusion is that although the zajal was used for a car ad (Nissan Sunny) which is different from Home City (furniture and home accessories) and although there is around 10 months difference btween the Nissan ad and the Home City ad, and even if the word play is a bit different ("Of, of, offre" for Sunny and "50% off, off off" for Home city) I cannot but scold Clementine for not noticing the Nissan ad (and the big popularity it raised). Or worse, for noticing it and copying it.
The jury is still out on this one, but no matter the verdict Clementine has serious issues - and to say that the uncle of one of their art directors' is Lebanon's most famous living zajal poet!....

3 comments:

Dani. said...

You don't have a contact page, so I'll ask you here..do you have twitter?

Tarek Chemaly said...

Dani my email is tarekchemaly@gmail.com and no, I do not have twitter, after all, I can hardly imagine myself confining myself to 140 characters or less! :)

Geoana said...

Hey Tarek,
don't forget the new LEBANONOFF with its TVC that implies zajal as well !!! And guess what ?! yes it Clementine !!!