Real and virtual flavors streaming from Beirut, Lebanon
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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.
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.
Tags: #missingz, lebanon, social media campaigns middle east, Social Media Marketing, zaatar w zeit
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.
Tags: beirut, blackberry, Corporate marketing, Kono Pizza, lebanon, mobile marketing, restauraunts, USP
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.
Tags: advertisement, events lebanon, forward forum, marketing, recruitment
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?
Tags: campaign, egypt, irhal, online advertising, online marketing, positioning
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!
Tags: cookieman, enterpreneurship, lebanon, middle east, social media, Social Media Marketing, socila media business, start up, taxilb, twitter business
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?
Tags: advertising, advertising campaigns, advertising copy cats, am financials, copywriting, creativity, forex advertising, lebanon, online advertising, under new management, yahoo
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.
Tags: campaign, communication, competition, Corporate marketing, personal branding, social media, Social Media Marketing, twitter
Ameinfo asks members to answer survey in return promises to donate to their charity of choice
Tags: ameinfo, call to action, clickthrough rate, csr, CTA, ctr, email marketing, feedback, leedgeneration, middle east, social media, surveys, web industry
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
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.
Tags: #benihanakuw, b2b, b2c, benihana kuwait, blogging, branding, digital marketing, facebook, franchising, marketing strategies, middle east social media marketing catastrophies, socail media, social media crisis management, social media guidelines, Social Media Marketing, social media marketing middle east, twitter
I receive a lot of e-greeting cards and I am usually more than happy to share the most interesting ones with you, because I believe that seasonal greeting cards are an important touch-point within the overall marketing communication strategy. Among the many cliche and uninspiring greeting cards I have received so far, the above is just beguiling in its quaintness, naivete and absolute personalized depiction of the business.
Have you seen any enthralling corporate e-greetings lately? I would be ecstatic to take a peek.
Tags: cartoon greeting cards, communication strategy, corporate communication strategy, corporate greeting cards, Corporate marketing, email marketing, end of year greeting cards, lebanon, marketing, marketing touchpoints, middle east, personalized corporate greeting cards, seasonal marketing, vent nouveau
