Friday, December 2, 2011

More out of duty than enthusiasm










If am commenting on most of these ads it is out of a sense of duty rather than enthusiasm. This is what remains from the pre-Christmas lot (which is already sweeping town bit by bit). Let's see: I could not, for the life of me, understand who was behind the "What's in your head?" campaign. Unless I am dreadfully mistaken then is no brand there. Is this a thesis? And which is one of the bottle wearing a mexican hat. Again, I could be awfully wrong but... What's in your (he)ad? is more appropriate as a question.
The Warde wallpaper has been there for a while, but I still haven't commented on it - I think what they did for their fabrics was more "alive" than this one. But at least it's blue, it's fresh, and it could have been much worse.
Oh, finally a bit of a fresh air. An association called "Abaad" is warning against family violence towards women (why isn't it Kafa? Or it is once more the Lebanese syndrome of each one working for himself better than collaborating with whatever is already on the market?). Anyhow, a local proverb goes "Darb el habib zbib" - the hitting of a loved one is as sweet as dried raisins - so this campaing replaced "zbib" with "mou3ib" which means "scandalous" or "shameful". A nice attempt if you ask me.
Bosch is hitting on the eternal question every used car owner asks him/herself in the morning... "Will it start or will it stall?"... Well, at least it is an informative message which does not sacrifice the creativity for the real info and ends up not being a hard-sell ad. In other words - a fine balance between letting you know what they want and delivering it with minimum harm to the eyes.
With a full moon ecplise coming over this December 10th, Debbas is joining the melee by eclipsing its own prices. You might not believe it but back in the 80s Debbas had some of the best ads in town. The 80s might have been back in terms of fashion and pop culture, but not for Debbas it seems.
Another civic message in the lot after "Abaad". Himaya - litteraly "protection" - tackles child abuse and molestation (again, it has been done before with the character of "Salwa" - so why couldn't these two associations work together and save money is beyond me). So the man hiding in the tree is the tree itself.... When it comes to art direction this is second to none, so I guess I should be impressed (oddly, I did not touch me neither emotionally nor on the cerebral level).
So there's a new wine in town? Or it is new? I have no clue!... The message is simple, this is the wine2.0 or the 3G of the wines, so "upgrade".
And isn't it cute for all these corporations to play the nostalgia card? Very recently we had ABC flipping their album, now it is HSBC - although with a name like "The British Bank of the Middle East - Sub Branch" one can hardly relate it to the HSBC initials. But if it makes sense of them, then good luck!
The Sleep Comfort card of saying in an advertisement that they do not need advertisement for their matress has been done before (most recently by "Cafe super Brasil" saying that the customer has always been their ad). But I still found it cute to see.

1 comment:

M.II said...

thumb up for debas, wardeh and abaad... nice ads we miss this kind of creativity in leb....