The News by The Advertising Association

Lebanon Advertising Association

(AA) has launched end of July a nationwide a cross-industry multi-media communication campaign to help revive the economy, which has suffered a serious setback due to the many crisis Lebanon is currently witnessing. Described as an “advertising festival” by George Jabbour, the President of the Advertising Association (AA), the Lebanese Syndicate, it is actually a marketing blitz with regard to the scale of the campaign, introduced “with the aim of stimulating investment and encouraging advertisers to continue, or return to, advertising.”

Scheduled to run all through August and September and divided into two phases, the messaging was simple with double meaning under the tagline--’ana O3lin’ which means in Arabic ‘I Declare’ but also ‘I Advertise’/’i Announce’; the kind of catchy tagline that can make sense in the current context -- flexible enough as it leaves room to many variations and push it further giving the entire concept a much more powerful message with plentiful of iterations.

Indeed, the tagline itself, which is now a registered trademark, was a bold nod and and an opportunity to mark the centennial of the declaration of the Greater Lebanon. Its brevity and directness put the focus on what’s important today and was meant to stick in people’s minds. It called for brands and people to jump into the creative process too and continue the sentence with one of their own, and make a statement that is relevant and relatable to the brand advertising with their own take on the Lebanon they long for.

As a part of this campaign, AA was also putting in joint efforts to create awareness about the imperative of advertising in time of crisis, as the primarily objective was that our industry should continue to operate in the current circumstances.

And for this purpose, AA and all sectors of the ad industry have coordinated their efforts to bring this campaign to life-- with all local media offering ad space pro bono.

The campaign has been created by

Sami Saab, Founder and Creative director of Phenomena who explained that “the need for such a major

marketing initiative was felt out of the unfortunate state of the ad industry, with empty billboards lining the streets, hardly few campaigns running on TV and radio and almost none in the newspapers. Advertising seems to be gradually vanishing from the landscape let alone from people’s minds.

“The economic impact of the pandemic will be felt for many months to come. We created this campaigns, as we believe that together we can turn this crisis into an opportunity,” stated Saab. “We believe in times of challenges, effective and efficient communication is vital. With the collective intelligence among ad land players, we are pleased to be of service to the ad community and support the march towards a brighter future.”

It is a well-known fact that advertising provides the vital impetus to the economic engine of every nation. It is also rightly said that in good times it pays to advertise and in bad times, one simply must advertise. Therefore, may brands have joined in and came up with their own slogan that fit in with the ‘I Declare” punchline.

All of this was of course vital to help revive confidence in advertising.

And despite the Covid-19 crisis disrupting ‘business as usual’ and the Port Beirut explosion early August that put a halt to almost everything in Lebanon, the campaign kept rolling; nonetheless, it was hard to bring in the cashflows that this campaign was hoping for.

“We are in for a very difficult few months for advertising as it is for the rest of our economy and country,” said George Jabbour. “We should remain optimistic and I believe that through our creative and entrepreneurial abilities, and using all our creative energy and ingenuity, we will see this crisis through and look back with pride at how we rose to this challenge.”