Ai(e)... Ai(e)... Torture through advertising.

Some of you may recall that I am not longer a patron of Aishti or any of its subowned brands due to the loyatly card debacle, this doesn't mean however that some of their ads were not good - particularly the long and healthy relationship they enjoyed with Leo Burnett. But if this latest crop of ads serves anything it is to illustrate the dangers of brands going in-house with their advertising (with all due respect to Malak Baydoun).
Gone are the super-sleek photos that were taken by Roger Moukarzel for Aishti and they were replaced by an ad so square it actually represented... a box. Yes, a box. I am sure there is something beautiful and wonderful and over-priced in it - but darn the suspense, it is inside the box.... Well, how obout thinking out of the box, or perhaps in a box - but in a different box! The mousetrap execution also fails to convey luxury, price, uniqueness, hipness and all other things Aishti might stand for.
But all this is well when compared to the Aizone campaign which plays on subliminal messages so difficult to decipher you'd have to be already high to get them. It took me ages to be able to read the postcards that came of the free "Gossip" magazine published by the Tony Salameh Group. In the end the messages were "embrace life" and "do not harm" - at that point I was ready to give up on life and kill somone so much it was frustratic to read them!... A Dutch friend who was visiting me commented "If I wanted to feel as if I was high, perhaps it was best if I stayed in Amsterdam where hash is legal."