Bonjus Popsicle ad billboard- Click to zoom in

This series by Bonjus really relates to the senses, with the great slice representations my mouth waters every time I see them. Undoubtedly they are one of my favorite ads of the summer.

Almahhal Al Mnih - Mahal Ma btestrih - Click to view full size

Hasab el Souk Betsouk - Click to view full image

Last year Jamal Trust Bank launched  endearing visuals to promote their personal loans, and well this year I feel they have outdone themselves, as they created ads that really grab your attention, and for me present great visual remixes of street art and”street culture heritage” that really etch the brand into your brain and make you associate these common place objects, when you see them “off-bilboard” with the brand’s message, which is something every brand dreams of. My favorite, is their interpretation of ”back of the truck advertising” , now every time I see a truck with these funny phrases they have, I think about JTB. And the copywriting is such a good play on words, don’t you think?

More of these lovelies on Tarek’s blog.

* I could not capture the whole series and they have not updated their website yet, so if you can acquire them and link them to me I would gladly have the whole collection.

A lot of my stress in Lebanon is related to the plight of recklessness that we witness on our roads be it from pedestrians or from drivers. The Lebanese roads mayhem, can only be more favorable that the driving habits in Egypt, which is known to be utterly ‘kamikazeh’ reckless.

And though I may be late to comment, I am utterly in love with this new project on LBCI, Cheyef 7alak to document this sad state on Lebanese roads and highways an show the mischievous what it really looks like. Citizens are also encouraged to sumbit their own witness stories, photos and videos on the website, youtube channel, facebook and twitter.

Check out below my favorite episode of the series that showcases why it is “stupid” to use a pedestrian bridge and what a pedestrian bride is “actually made for”.

Great work Impact BBDO and LBCI this is a great awareness campaign, and the digital integration of the campaign is also good.

It’s been almost a week since I’ve returned from Tunis, and I have barely unpacked, and I literally have sand from the beach there in my favorite sandals. Asides from the massive amount of fun, sightseeing and shopping that was done there, those four days were dedicated to the Regional Meeting of Creative Commons, which also served as an initiation of the CC Tunis community, that I am sure will greatly enrich the region with their unlimited passion.

Within the event a series of workshops were incorporated to introduce ‘sharism’, creative commons and remixing in an open source worlds. The whole event culminated in an amazing concert, the music and program of which was created by the participants within these four days.

Photo take by Bilal Randeere's during the workshop and is licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA license click to view more photos by Bilal From Tunis

Together with Eman Jaradat from Jordan, we gave a workshop* on how to use Creative Commons in combination with Social Media to Create, Share, Network and Build Your personal brand. We tried to explain CC, the different social networking platforms and how to share/find work there as well as emphasizing the importance of proper attribution.

The most amazing part of that is when we gave the attendees an assignment to create their own works representing current Tunis. Our participants were mostly writers and journalists, but surprisingly they have created very interesting conceptual work with limited tools and the internet, whilst one group ‘borrowed’ a designer from the other workshop to fulfill their concept.

[slideshare id=8515540&doc=cctunis-110705151546-phpapp01]

You can see the results, as they were remixed into the video created during Stephanie Terroir‘s and Mahmoud Abou Wardeh’s workshops, which was projected in the concert.

Creative Commons Tunis Regional Meeting

Tunisia is a unbelievably beautiful country, with warm and welcoming people, despite the recent events, everything was completely safe and peaceful when we were there. So I absolutely recommend for anyone thinking of a vacation spot to pick Tunisia, you would not regret it!

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*building the workshop and exercises and coordinating it online is a whole other story/miracle all in the spirit of CC, big thanks to Donatella De La Rata for bringing me and Eman together and Naeema for providing guidance, the slide background and some of the slides from her presentation.

UPDATE: Leo Burnett won Cannes Lions silver for this campaign.Check the full campaign recap video below. Thumbs UP!  (The reach numbers seem a bit high to me though)

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Initially Published March 18

After an extremely dull strain of flash microsites and lame sweepstakes comes a completely refreshing SOCIAL social media campaign from Leo Burnett, that provides a unique and personalized message and is also 100% related to the cause at hand. To think that all of this time when I was raging that ad agencies DO NOT GET IT that influencers want to be ENGAGED they got IT !!!

It all started a few days ago when I found a friend request on my facebook from a “Darine Sabbah” who also had MY profile photo. Immediately I posted for all my friends to report this person and reported him/her myself. Friends rages, some said its a spam bot and that others have been hit too, a friend called me to check if I am OK, another said I must be pretty famous to be impersonated…  whilst I stayed bewildered that the profile is still up.

And a few minutes ago I found what it is all about and it is so bewilderingly brilliant, that after my long round of silence and amidst my crazy commitments to Twestival Beirut (and instead of writing a post about that) I am writing a post about this.

So the secret was revealed when I got the following two Private Messages on Facebook.

Do I need to rave more about how insightful this campaign was?I would’ve probably created you some nice bullet list and a great deal of reasoning packed into 500 words or so, if I had the time, but I think you guys can go ahead and build it on your own, in the comments below.

So be ware “The closest things to you might be fake”. It’s time to take action.

P.S. What I did not like though that the PMs came from a from Brand PGs facebook user account and that that account is a closed account with little info and there is no Facebook Page for Brand protection.

P.S.2 The funny thing is that I got a Press Release from Leo Burnett a few days earlier about what they were doing for the campaign and tehre was a slight mention of facebook, but i completely disregarded it thinking it will be same old ads + page. I almosty feel like calling this “guerrilla social media” …

With the great number of creative submissions by both celebrit designers, professionals and amateurs for Bras for a Cause, it was really hard to make a choice. But my absolute favorite is the one above, the design by Millniece Pinto is really empowering and absolutely beautiful, I just wish it really gets to be made into real life.

Many women wish they could show off their bra, either because of the colour, prints or various other design aspects. I have designed a bra,taking this into consideration,by using a basic U-plunge bra and adding a yoke to it. I have designed this bra to be worn either under or over garments. Keeping in mind, women with breast cancer, the bra is designed as a pocket bra, where a prosthesis can be put in, if needed. Sacagawea being a symbol of women’s worth and independence, I have used her culture as inspiration whilst designing the bra. The Lemhi Shoshone culture has a lot of earthy colours used, that are sombre, yet bold. I have also used tribal print, found in the Lemhi Shoshone culture, in the design. The print has been inspired by a beaded necklace. To keep with the sassy, feminine appeal, I have chosen a combination of lace and cotton fabric. The bra is designed for women who are bold and young, and women who want to rediscover their youth.

 

 

What is your favorite? Vote Now and help in spreading awareness about breast cancer.

The original Kono Pizza , webscreenshot from http://www.konopizza.it/eng/home.html

VS

The duplicate, received via email

My little sister was so joyous that James Blunt was coming to Lebanon, to be fair she’s happy when any artists comes to Lebanon even when she does not get to go to the concert. She went to her first ever live performance last month when Shakira was here. I asked her if she saw her from the place they were at , she said when she zoomed in with her camera into the stage she was able to catch a glimpse. Then I asked her if she knew that would happen and that she needed to stand in a crowd of screaming people for hours would she still have went, she said DEFINITELY.

So now, as you may have guessed she’s going to the James Blunt Concert on Monday and she’s really excited! She’s counting down the days and today she drew the artwork above to show her excitement and support Tamanna (I think the guy with the glasses is supposed to be James Blunt) .

As you may know, what is amazing about this concert is that it is organized to fulfill a child’s wish, and all the proceeds from the international signer’s concert are also going in support of many other wishes for children with terminal illnesses and improving their quality of life. So all of this is a fantastic international collaboration between Tamanna and James Blunt that enables everyone to help and support either through ticket sales, awareness raising, or simply wearing a white T-shirt.

You can also help by:

-Donating on the Tamanna website.

- Like and share Tamanna’s facebook page
- Follow & RT @TamannaLeb

- Raise Awareness about the NGO within your social network.

Also Check out Mohammad Hijazi’s and Marie Nakhleh’s posts about Tamanna.

These are a few of the mantras that I try to repeat to clients to shift their paradigm to thinking about ONLINE marketing and their online presence. What are the mantras that you follow in your online marketing strategy?

- Advertising does not Guarantee Visibility

- Visibility does not equal Brand Leverage

- Visibility is nothing without Engagement

- Engagement can not result in friction points and frustration, as these “de-stimulate”  and greatly impact conversions

- Engagement needs a series of personalized touch-points in order to create qualified leads that are then filtered into conversions

- Visibility through online advertising does not mean engagement and brand awareness in the online world

- Since online advertising is not interruption based, the challenge is in creating interactive ads and campaigns that will grab the attention of the online community and create conversions.

- Online advertising and other social media channels are used in combination to create multiple effective touch points with leads and community leaders to create brand engagement and awareness.

- Valuable content and value added in the community create a positive brand image will will eventually lead to more conversions

- Conversions are not instantaneous, online marketing, just like any sales process requires significant lead nurturing to make them convert and become clients.

- As each online experience is unique, we now have the tools to target each and every targeted group with individual messages and tailored communication strategies that will create multiple gateways for them to find out about the brand and come through gateways customized for them.

- In the online world, any activity performed by a company leaves a lasting footprint in the world wide web, unlike offline, where there is no feedback past the expiry of the month in which an add or press release was rolled out.

- On Digital Echo: Online campaigns, do not have an instantaneous effect, before becoming viral, a certain time-slot needs to be given for the online community to discover the content ( which we will be working on), get interested in it, explore it, adopt it and then start spreading it and becoming brand ambassadors. This resulting echo will further resonate the campaign and the brands position. That is why, the campaigns need to be present and fed with content for certain period to maximize their reach.

- Online advertising gives companies full statistics in terms of how many people viewed their messages/ads, how many clicked on their ads, where they came from, what they did, how much time they spent on the landing page… something offline advertising can not aspire to. Furthermore in online advertising you pay for targetted leads and people who actually viewed the ads , and not a mass of newspaper subscribers that disregard the ad, or people who switch channels during commercial times.

- Leads need to be put into a personalized nurturing process that will ensure their conversion with time through a series of various online and offline touchpoints with the brand.

Tomorrow I will be attending the 1oth Arab Telecom and Internet Forum taking place in Beirut . The event expects to cover the challenges and opportunities in the region through discussion between operators, service providers and regulators. I will be tweeting using the #ATIF10 hastagh. And as usual there will be a follow up post on GIGALB.

[scribd id=55880083 key=key-1xldmgmakztiiif25qb7 mode=list]

Found this file laying by mistake on some corporate CDs we  have, the supplier must have mixed up two jobs together.

Anyway I though many of you would enjoy flipping through it, or sharing it with foreign friends.

I like it when brands are upfront and honest, it is sort of refreshing don’t you think?

The only brand that comes to mind which has purple in its corporate identity is Cadbury so they are number one on my suspect list. Who is on yours?

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UPDATE:

Tthe campaign turned out to be a campaign by VOLVO for their Leasing Campaign

The extremely weird thing about the campaign is their unbelievably primitive use of the Facebook Page created.

I’d rather they just used facebook ads for the Volvo from the start rather than waste money to direct people to a non-engaging brochure publishing page.

[scribd id=55751935 key=key-eaokb2aj4vtd3mhm9jw mode=list]

I know I am usually all about the Social Media Marketing, but let us not forget, traditional marketing is still amkes up a huge part of a marketer’s day to day tasks. And though participation in tradeshows*, exhibitions and conferences may become less frequent it is still there for every marketer and is essential for business networking, at least for now.

When I was preparing for an exhibition at work I made this checklist in order not to forget anything, and thought I would share it with you. It contains the major things that you should do/coordinate/get before, during and after an event / exhibition that your company is participating in. Let me know if you would add anything to it, feel free to download it, modify it and scribble your own notes in, that  relate to you industry or specific event.

Fell free to ask me for the original file, in case you want to make major changes, I would be happy to see it get a new life.

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* Not that I like/enjoy the fact, to me they are more like the inevitable. Networking 101 without the 2.0 element ( and some events that I have to attend/participate in are like that) seem to lack an extra layer of richness and context. I do enjoy events directed towards netizens though.

Bras for A Cause – Funstany.com

While companies are trying to trick the social media users to talk about them , Fustany.com* is really trying  to do some social good, partnering with the wonderful Loryne Atwi from One Wig Stand for a project aiming to provide cancer survivors with sexy and accessible lingerie, whilst doing breast cancer awareness and fund-raising.  Watch the video above to find out how the idea was born and who the judges are.

And the guys are pretty well organized, they recruited a team of ambassadors, they are churning out fresh shareable content within a set calendar,  they are passionate about their cause and most importantly they are active online and very quick to respond. So companies out there trying to figure out how to operate social media stay tuned to the guys begins Bras for a Cause.

And if you are a designer, Bras for a cause competitions not for fame and fortune, but because THIS is what will really empower women with breast cancer and make their life much easier.

Don’t forget to check the Bras for A Cause website, twitter and facebook page .

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*its not the first time fustany.com are doing something to help with breast cancer awareness either

I would sure like to see the digital strategy and the ROI behind all of these. Facebook has indeed become the new political landscape in Lebanon.

Well it seems someone got the cue from the president and decided to have a fan-raising campaign of his own.

In general, I always felt that political parties in Lebanon are always ready to try out new technologies,they were the first to have community portals, news portals and forums, and it seems that now they are even more actively embracing new media. Be ware!

Last week I gave two lectures at the Amercian University of Beirut as part of the AUB Online Collaborative #SM101 Series.

In the first I spoke briefly about how Social Media should be approached and some do’s and don’ts expressed by case studies from the Middle East. The below slides cover glibly what we talked about (hopefully I can post a video of it soon). The lovely Brooke Anderson from the Daily Star wrote an insightful overview of the lecture here.

If you are interested in the subject of setting up a Social Media Strategy you will be also interested with the interview I did over at GIGALB with Patrick Atallah from 90:10 Group which gives first hand insights into the subject.

The second was an introduction to Social Media Monitoring and was all about the free tools one can use to monitor social media activity and creative way of putting them to use. Let me know if there are any tools you love to use that were not mentioned here.

It was a very interesting experience indeed, big thanks to Mohammad Hijazi for inviting me over and Mrs. Leila Khauli for the support by telling her students that the material will be on their exams.

Originally the Reels Festival was planned to be hosted in Syria, but due to the recent events plans changed and now it is coming to Beirut, so they need all the support from the audience they can get, you can check the most updated program here as new things are added daily. You can also get in contact with the guys on the links below as they look forward to learn about the  Lebanese creative scene.

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/reelfestivals.org
Twitter: http://twitter.com/reelfestivals
Website: www.reelfestivals.org

At first I thought it may just be Zaatar w Zeit rebranding themselves,then I saw this video and the acting and the background music just stand out together with a youtube account that was just born yesterday.

Missingz

And then just a few minutes back I got this letter delivered to my office.

Would’ve been more fun if ZwZ was panicking online and threatening to sue the mischievous, but i guess all of this is part of tehir online initiation campaign.

It’s fun let’s keep watching.

Apparently you can now order a Kono Pizza delivered to you via Blackberry Services, that’s an interesting way of looking at mobile marketing , perfectly localized for our country.

*It was hard to capture the photo whilst driving and having beeping coming from all around on this Rass Beirut Cross Road.

Everyone is up to stirring a revolution these days, or at least, trying to juice out the buzz out of them towards their gain.

I’ve showed you previously an example of Irhal’s response to the Egyptian revolution.

This new example tries to echo a recent political rally here in Beirut, re-purposing it to promote their event. My Eyeballs, being used to political slogans all around were definitely caught up to read on. Nevetherless, I do not believe it added to the event’s exposure or made more impact compared to Forward’s usual print materials / ads.

What do you think?

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For revolutions I am interested in, I advise checking out Ontornet’s amazing efforts for advocating for faster internet in Lebanon.

This one is from my screenshot archive that is yet to see the light of day.

During the  first days of the Egyptian revolution,  travel portal Irhal was witty enough to quickly launch this online advertisement campaign, which at first thought makes you think about the revolution and a naive campaign cooked up in haste by the revolutionaries, whilst you quickly discover that the ad just wants YOU to see the world more. What I did not like that the time is that the ad took you to the website’s home page, instead of a specialized landing page.

irhal.com also offered Egyptian companies working in the tourism sector free ad space to help boost the tourism sector there following the political unrest.

Do you have similar examples stashed away somewhere?

You all remember Samer Karam’s brainchild @cooki3man, which was the first twitter based business model. Through @cookieman you could order cookies baked according to Samer’s secret recipe via DM ( and later on via email). And whilst the business was quite successful and many were jumping to place orders and batches were running out fast, legend has it Samer’s oven broke down and he moved back to more serious and less sugar rush inducing endeavors.

But it seems there is another business that is willing to explore the power of twitter’s word of mouth business growth.

Having been punked by the Brand Protection Group Campaign recently, having @taxilb adding near April 1st, did not speak in their favor, as I am as cautious as ever.  But indeed I am curious and have been watching them interact online stirring quite a commotion amongst the twittershphere with their value proposition.

And some of their posts are plain hilarious:

It does not seem that any one has tried them out yet, but their rates sound very reasonable and their online persona is very bubbly.

Quite interestingly, the business started with an twitter account before even launching the website.

Well that is all I know for now, but of course  I am full of questions wanting to know who is behind this service and how the business is going so far and if anybody has used it.

Lets keep looking, maybe next time I have to take my car for maintenance I will try them out!

The below is a campaign that was launched by AM Financials last summer (Summer 2010) and still running on their site and corporate materials. At the time it seemed to me too brilliant to be original, I raked my memory and did my research.

You could fin the full overview of the original Yahoo Campaign launched in September 2009 here.  I do not believe it was a coincidence, do you?

There is nothing out of the usual in this campaign and yet This campaign provides a good quality step up from the regular wishy-washy stale sweepstakes.

What is good about this campaign:

- It puts Rak Bank’s new product at the center of the promotion, by giving people a packaged message  to tweet. The message is short and concise.

- Does not force you to follow or like anyone.

- Message provided is impartial and hence does not in any way affect credibility of the tweeter.

- It is extremely simple for users to execute and only involves one step.

- It provides transparency by showing all the rules, number of prizes, campaign duration, method of selecting winners…

- It costs Rak Bank close to nothing and would be extremely easy to monitor.

- It is less of a bribery model (cheap sweepstakes) and more of a reward for promotion model.

Keep following @rakbanklive  on twitter to see their other ways of interacting with the audience.

P.S. I am lately resorting to short posts, as opposed to not writing at all.

This post is inspired by the lawsuit filed by Benihana Kuwait against the author of one of the most popular Kuwaiti blogs for an objective review they did not appreciate.

In my previous  job, working in the International Sales Department, our main objective was to get new agents across the world to represent our brand and supporting them through thick and thin with Marketing Materials ranging from catalogs, brochures, photos, samples, emailer templates, templates, microsites…  And that was not an easy job. Many a time clients would come to us directly from countries where we already had agents because they felt that we could service them better, more efficiently, that we had more know how, or simply because the agent was rude, unprofessional, unethical… And I can imagine how much more pressures you have for controlling standards and ensuring brand integrity in the B2C world, from making sure your outlets correspond to certain standards of look, feel, smell & sound, to a unified experience and service levels… especially if you have franchised your brand and no longer hold the remote control, only having access and being able to voice concerns on matters that are distinctly outlined in that one franchising agreement. Whilst on the other hand the franchisee, has the golden key and has the ability to drive your name into a wall at any time.

via BlogBaladi.com

Well guess what, with the world wide web, your reputation is not only threatened in that one location, worse come to worse, one slip up can cause a global ripple effect damaging all of your brand’s properties.

So today brands playing internationally also have to develop clear branding and marketing strategies for managing their digital identity and reciprocate those experiences into clear guidelines and strict policies with lots of case studies and canned responses for their partners to follow worldwide, otherwise, you’ll have another Benihana Kuwait nightmare on your hands. And well of course, have a clear cut crisis management plan.

I feel so sorry for Benihana New York  and can imagine the nightmare they are going through at the moment unable to control anything and trying to explain to their partners how much damage they have done and convince them to change course of action. For all of you other brands out there, this is not an excuse for you to get scared of the online world and run away, it is just one more proof that you should be online, listen, monitor and engage in a structured way respecting the community that constitutes a large portion of your target audience and learn from cases such as these.

Make sure to check Mark’s roundup on all the amazing posts the community has written to support him and appeal to Benihana Head offices Japan through this easy was provided by @Alexandermcnabb.

For more marketing perspective also check @youmny’s post at Marketing in Lebanon blog – Benihana Kuwait, the art of creating a PR crisis. You can also check what Lebanese bloggers had to say on this.

Disclaimer: 24am is a blog that I have personally been following for a long while and  recommend for all of you to follow due to the amazing quality of content it has and the objectivity of its authors.