Thursday, July 18, 2013

Sweet rivalry - Sea Sweet ups the ante (UPDATED)

Research credit: Jessica Geagea

Wow! I have never seen anything like this in advertising in Lebanon. Four (if you count the pointless Baba Sweets intervention) dueling as if there is no tomorrow without breaking the comparative advertising law.
First came Abdel Rahman Al Hallab with "Sar Bi Jounieh? Helou" (which means - He's now in Jounieh? How Sweet. Helou in this context means "sweet" or "how nice").
Only to be answered by Douaihy with "Wsolet m2akhar 3ala Jounieh ya helou" (you're late coming to Jounieh sweetie - Helou again in this context means "sweet" or "sweetie").
Hallab fires back (not as strongly as it ought to - sorry Zaher, the answer is a tad below what could have been!) with "el helou law t2akhar bi wojoudo el kil byetbakhar" (the nice one, even if late, when he arrives, everyone else disappears).
But it is Sea Sweet which ended up having the last word "helou 3ana tarachtouna" (in this case "helou" when pronounced "hellou" means "move away" so their line means "move away, you're annoying the rest of us").
Frankly, I am just in heaven seeing such interesting rivalry, very smart use of word-smithing and above all, a bit of malice without it being daggers-drawn!...
Helou indeed.

Major update:
Hawat sweets has just released this:
Research credit: Jessica Geagea

"Ad ma ykoun bi Jounieh fi helou, bit dal Jbeil a7la" (no matter how much sweet there is in Jounieh, Jbeil remains sweeter). Interesting "Jbeil A7la" is the town's slogan! Jbeil being Byblos which is the next door neighbor to Jounieh.
This is getting insane and a little out of hand if you ask me!

No comments: