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.

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.

[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.

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

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.

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?

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.

It seems awfully odd that every year I win those two tickets Beirut Restaurants giveaway via twitter to the Lebanese Food & Wine Festival , and well I am not much of a wine person, so once again one lucky reader will get those two tickets since the lovely guys at Beirut Restaurants agreed to let me pass them on.

The event is taking place between 9-12 December and fully comprises of eating and wine degustations.

So , all you need to do is, check if you like the program of the event and your calendar is free and then comment on the post below and one lucky winner will be announced on Friday Morning.

And do not forget to follow Beirut Restaurants on twitter and facebook, to check their restaurant reviews and keep participating in tehir giveaways.

UPDATE: The Winner is Ghassan , Thank you all for participating & better luck next time.

****Update: Fares is the winner and will receive The Phoenicians book via Antoine Online. Thank you All for playing and better luck next time.

So far Antoine Online have their heart in the proper place. They are renewing their online shopping site and have signed multiple agreements with international retailers like Amazon to ensure you are really able to get ANY book you want.

The website is being released this week at the Salon du Livre in Beta with testers being invited to help iron everything out. So you can log on to check it here

and help out, or just relax and wait for my full review once I make my first purchase.

BUT FOR NOW:

Tell me which book you would like to get and why and one of my lucky readers will get his dream book through Antoine Online*.

Disclaimer: Antoine Online have asked me to review their site  – True. And yet my objectivity shall not be tainted in terms of what I write.

*International Readers welcome

Well with all my business I forgot to tell you about my 1st guest post over at GigaLB.com, which is a hip Lebanese Tech Online Mag run by the Maniachis for technology insiders, lovers and addicts, and early adopter consumers. When I sent Chadi the post, 2 days late I did not imagine that he would accept posting it with the headline that I put. But anyways he did, so now, if any of you want to berate me for the lack of posting you can read between the lines to check the reasons why. Anyways, here is my blog post with the takeaways Lebanese marketers and Social Media enthusiasts need to munch on following the event.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

And keep on the lookout for other posts of mine over at GigaLb who are good hosts.

I wrote it last week, just as I came back from a special press screening of The Social Network Movie, which will be released on October 28^th, courteously provided by the lovely and amazing guys at Cineklik (with no strings attached as usual).

Let me just start by saying that everyone who is into Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Entrepreneurship, creativity and how new ideas are born, or just plain corporate ball games needs to watch this movie.

The plot amazingly intertwines the evolution of human relations and synergies with how ideas grow, expand and catch on. It also asks the eternal questions of: What gets people creative? Why do we do the things we do? What is right and what is wrong? What is the worth of an idea? What is the best business model for a DOT – COM? In short it is about how Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook and the players who pitched in, in all the different ways. And how they all search for the absolute truth.

It is the first movie in a very long while that makes me want to talk about it for hours and hours non-stop – This is the genius of the script, the brilliance of the actors and how it all well resonates with our fast paced realities and the “Youth” being the movers and shakers in this Business Era, while lawyers and far more experienced people try to grasp the ideas.

I loved how it explores what made Facebook different from the Hi5, Myspace and Friendsters of the time, and zooms into how each element of the facebook profiles evolved.  It is true magic how every player in a company plays a certain role to peg it forward, but then again not all of them are recognized…. Well I will not say more, you have to watch the movie to get the train of philosophical analysis rolling.

The final thing I want to add is that it will turn into a cult movie that will elevate the pedestal Facebook as brand is on both among Technocrats, Entrepreneurs, SM Freaks and wannabees. In my opinion it is the best product placement feat since “Career Opportunities” and it came spot in the next wave of the 2^nd Dot-Com boom. Using Facebook, after watching the movie, simply becomes a religious experience. Try it!

Disclaimer: This is NOT a solicited review, the movie simply rocks.

Yesterday evening I had a call from my husband listing my 3 options for a dinner meal:

1- I buy something ready made

2- He makes me a quick sandwich

3- I do not eat a thing

This was prelude to him announcing that I can not cook anything at home since there was no water (apparently something is wrong with our water tank) and we have only a couple of water bottles…

Once i came home I had to carefully ration the water we had to wash up and brush my teeth, for drinking and making sure we have enough for the next morning. Let me tell you something, it was really hard to constantly make a conscious effort whenever you needed to use water, and as it turns out in the 3 hours I spent before I went to sleep I needed it on so many occasions. Needless to say, the morning was not any better filled with disappointed gazes towards the shower.

Hopefully our water tank will get fixed today and we will move on to carelessly consuming water in the days to come.

But let us be objective, the Earth’s water resources are not limitless and political observers these days are saying that the next generation of resource wars will be over, not gold, diamonds or oil, but WATER. And here is another though for you, millions of people these days are rationing water, walking miles to get a few buckets of clean water and suffering much more than I did yesterday. Find out more on the Blog Action Day site and on Other Lebanese Blogs Writing About the Subject.

So I barely logged in to facebook the other day, when my jaw drops at this.

And the ad takes you to this landing page.

Guerrilla marketing just got a new meaning and being 007 was never easier.

Now honestly, things like these really make you think twice about your online activity and how your online information can be misused and how you can be hunted down and targeted with ads without even recognizing it.

So why hasn’t the Lebanese government blocked this website? Isn’t it a threat to national security?

___________________________________________________

-Update-

This pots was mentioned in Global Voices Online , Thank you Guys!

When I was little, I would ask my parents to buy me a horse. In my opinion, ponies were not real horses, plus you would never see musketeers or Zorro on a pony, would you? So we never talked of ponies. One time, when I asked for a horse, my mom said, we had nowhere to keep the horse in our three room apartment in Minsk. I objected that we have the balcony. Then my mom said that the horse will need a lot of food and would feel very cold in the negative temperatures in the winter. So I made a compromise, and told them they could get me a camel, since a camel endures a long time without food or water and is more resistant to severe weather conditions.

Needless to say, the closest  I got to having a horse was a “mechanical horse carriage/bicycle”. It was the point of envy of all the kids around, and got stolen several times, but still me and the metallic white horse never connected.

When I saw these new version of mechanical ponies in Dunes Verdun my heart skipped a beat. I had a half a mind to rent out a mechanical pony for myself. Plus you should have seen how this adorable kid kissed the pony and bid her goodbye when his session was over.

So tell me, what kind of weird pets did you ask for as a child?

In Ramadan people start behaving irrationally and gluttonously, buying everything they find in their way, buying at excess… People start buying kilos of sweets everyday. However, buying sweets, especially in the first days if Ramadan, can sometimes be a battle. The below is a video taken by our office boy at Safsouf Sweets in Beirut when he was trying to buy sweets at 3;00 pm on the second day of Ramadan. It took him one hour to buy the sweets.According to my boss, who has ordered the sweets, though Safsouf is a very old and traditional store, with no pompous decor… people go to him for genuine taste. Still I can not imagine waiting to get sweets, in a sweets shop full of aromas, for an hour while I am fasting. Could you?

I have not seen such a stampede in a shop even when I was a little girl in the USSR and food was rationed and you needed to stand for hours in line to get anything.

Ramadan Sweets Shortages – Beirut (Safsouf Sweets) from Darine Sabbagh on Vimeo.

So running on cockiness and adrenaline after @azzi told me that my tweet became a top tweet and @ambitionista pointed me at how to actually see that, here it is:

” Israel should publish a guidebook “How to start a war and blame others 101″ #lebanese “

And this summarizes my humble opinion on yesterday’s clash. As a final bout of  cockiness, I would like to add ” Top that Israeli Social Media Propaganda” and ” I will moderate your comments on this post, and block any twitter users that try to @ me convincing me of Israel’s innocence – so do not even bother!”

Now back to my normal self, this just shows that although we are not as organized as the enemy, we could resonate together with a unified message just as strongly. The tweet was just a spur of the moment thing that came to mind, for really sarcastic tweets on any situation follow @uxsoup, this man is a treasure trove.

My travel bug is growing worse and worse every day. My biological clock just knows that it is supposed to be somewhere half way across the world…

And passing by the above billboard by Beirut Duty Free Every day, evermore tingles my consumerism and desire to travel…

How do you deal with your travel bug?

Was tweaking through foursquare for businesses section when this stopped me in my feet. I felt so ecstatic with the idea I wanted to share with you what Flipside Beirut are doing, by pioneering location based marketing.

I will try to contact them to find out more, in the meantime let me know if you’ve tried the place before.

And Check:

- Their foursquare page

- Their twitter page

- Their Website

- Their Facebook page

It is obvious that the promotion is quite new, but let us keep watching to see where it gets.

So, do you know of any other businesses in Lebanon that have effective foursquare promotions? Or any ones in the Middle East per se.