VW Beetle

This is exactly why I don't drive a Beetle - I just take things too seriously. This campaign's just brilliant. I've yet to see a VW print or TV ad that I haven't found to be atypical of automotive industry advertising in general. Their ads always seem to break new ground. If anyone finds a chink in the armour of VW advertising, please send it across. Until then, VW I worship you...take me to your planet!

VW Beetle

VW Beetle

credit: Fallon, Singapore

A Fajita and Tabbouli to go please

(photos taken on Diyafah Road, Dubai)

What have we got here? A Lebanese grill restaurant with a twist as evident in the poster at their entrance. I personally don't know the financial situation of the owners of this place, but I can confidently say if you're after customers this certainly isn't the way to go. Want to make a difference? Then how about getting back to basics, relooking at your brand proposition and actually living up to it. Not a single Lebo restaurant I know here has been able to really capture the vibe of Beirut nor get right the amount of garlic and pickles in a chicken shawarma. With a restaurant named 'Beirut' I'd think that's as good a place to start as any. So spare us the Fajitas for pity's sake. I'll pass by in a month's time and I hope by then that poster's down.

Who says falcons don't like fruit?

I got caught in some serious traffic near the office yesterday. Thankfully, this Capri-Sonne van provided some much needed entertainment as there was nothing good on the radio. Note the two falcons - one perched on the grapes (of course) and the other on the apple stem. Funny juxtaposition isn't it? Brief to creatives: "Show how Capri-Sonne appreciates local culture." Bravo.

Lego adds some colour

Won Eurobest Silver 2005
Credit: Advance, Copenhagen

85% off

We don't just slash off the prices during the Dubai Shopping Festival. The spelling is also 85% off!

(pictures from Rigga Street in Deira)

Michael Jackson spotted in Bahrain

There are just too many things to say about this picture. So for once I will refrain. I give you MJ, dressed in a woman's abaya in Bahrain with his son. Words just fail.

Fancy a ride on the Freij Wheel?

You don't see enough Freij Wheels these days (not to be mistaken for the Ferris Wheel, invented by George W. Ferris). I spotted this one at a parking lot in Deira - part of the cancelled shopping festival activities, no doubt. Mr. Freij, wherever you are, thank you.

Happy New Year Happy New Year

It's that time of year, around Christmas and New Year when a familiar sound fills the air. Not xmas tunes in shopping malls, nor fireworks or champagne bottles exploding - but that all too repeated sound of 'beep beep' signalling yet another SMS.

I have never received as many SMS's as I have in the span of the last 1.5 weeks. I've got nothing against a nice warm message from friends, mind you, but when it's the typical mindless blurb of a corny holiday card that appears on my phone...then I really start getting annoyed. It's amazing that people have become so lazy and uninspired that they end up just forwarding the same cheesy lines to the rest of the people on their address book. So do us all a favour, for next December - try to be a little more creative, a lot more personal and a lot less lazy. That should be number 1 on all our New Year's resolutions. Write a card, phone your friends/family, and at the very least write your own darned SMS message instead of relying on someone else's cheesy uninspired lines.

I leave you with an SMS message I received from a total of 5 different people, who all took time out to forward it to me - personalizing it of course with their name at the end - so heartfelt it brings tears to my eyes.

'may the coming new year bring all the happiness and peace to the world'

Kit Kat "Ghost"

One of the few iconic brands in confectionary that are truly global. No gloating, but also one of my favorite brands personally and one which I get to work on here in Dubai. Perks include free Kit Kats and well...more free Kit Kats.

(Credit: "Ghost" by JWT Italy)

It's official...Sharjah's hot

Finally, a little bit of geographical humour in the UAE. Unless you've been an expat in Dubai, this ad would probably fly right over your head.

[Inside joke: Sharjah is another emirate within the UAE which funny enough is very much like a hospital - everyone knows where it is, and you sometimes have to visit but you never really want to go nor do you ever want to stay too long.]

(credit: not sure of agency name. Will credit once I find out.)

Lady driven...to where?

I bought my car, a VW Golf, 3 years ago. The market for used cars hasn't changed much since then. You still see the same German and Japanese cars up for sale, newer models, different specs. What I have noticed, however, is a larger incidence of classifieds specifying the car as being 'lady driven'. It's a curious thing actually when you think about it. What's the hidden message behind such a statement? Lady driven?

Is it that a 'lady' drives the way a lady should ergo she has followed all rules of the road, never had an accident or done burn-outs on the back streets of Dubai? Which therefore implies the car must be in good condition? Does it automatically mean you can charge a premium for the car? Is it not clustering all women (or should I say ladies) as sensible drivers and men as insensible ones? Is the term sexist at all? I'm pobably being a little overanalytical here. In the end it's just some bloke's smart way of pre-selling the car to a wary customer who probably lets his guard down the second he reads the car's been 'lady driven'.

I'm never selling my car; not if I can help it - it's my baby. But how curious would it be if the classified read:

VW Golf, 2.0 2001 model, white, fully automatic, 100,000kms in VGC, Dhs 35,000, never driven by a lady / call 050-xxx xxxx.

As far as selling is concerned, it probably would fail abysmally. But it would be one hell of an interesting social experiment, don't you think? Hold on...my phone's ringing.

The Rule of 150

I came across a fasincating concept the other day - from Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point.

The number '"150" siginifies the maximum number of people we can have a genuinely meaningful relationship with. This is a number calculated through an equation involving the size of part of the brain responsible for social behavior. So in layman's terms: the 151st person on your phone book is probably someone whose name you'd forget at a chance meeting.

Here are a couple of interesting examples of the number at play.

• A study found that the average number of certain hunter-gatherer type tribes in Greenland and Australia turned out to be 148.8.
• There is a rule of thumb within the army, as well, that the most efficient and effective units tend to be under 200 soldiers.
• Also, a religious community known as the Hutterites have over 100s of years stuck to the code that once they have grown past 150 individuals, it would once again become time to split the community and separate.

Through trial and error, all these communities have learned the Rule of 150.

How cool is that?!

(credit The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell)

I'm just thinking out loud here but...

Something that really irks me is a well established idiom I hear from a lot of people in advertising - I call it the "Verbal Safety Net". The Verbal Safety Net comes in many forms but most common is: "I'm just thinking out loud here but..." Said statement usually precedes an idea or suggestion the person would like to share with the group while ensuring he has a soft landing should everyone find the idea crap. In my experience, that idea usually is crap because if you had a good thought to begin with, then why worry about setting up your verbal safety net at all? Actually, similar with trapeze artists and high wire acts with safety nets, the fun is actually in seeing them fall.

"Uber Premium" in the Arabian Gulf

"UBER PREMIUM is all about status-craving consumers hunting down the next wave in uber-exclusive goods, services and experiences that are truly out of reach for 99.9% of the MASS CLASS…So UBER PREMIUM is everything that is truly out of reach of the vast majority of consumers. Not just financially, but also by not being invited, or by being too late.

"Abu Dhabi's Al Reem Island is 300 metres offshore and will be linked to Abu Dhabi by two bridges. First property project on the island is the USD 7 billion Shams Abu Dhabi development, which will be comprised of a series of themed, exclusive neighbourhoods linked by waterways and the latest ideas in urban transportation networks. The entire development is scheduled for completion by 2011."

"The USD 2.5 billion Pearl-Qatar offshore residential island, chock-a-block with UBER PREMIUM dwellings, is slated for completion in 2009."

(Source: Trendwatching.com)

Barbie's Arab cousin

"Meet Fulla, the Arab Barbie girl. She's covered from head to foot in black and has no boyfriends, let alone one named Ken. In some parts of the world, Fulla might gather dust, but across the Middle East and North Africa she is the top selling doll." (credit Gulf News, Dubai)

Reaching addicts in Bahrain

Folded "heroin bags" were planted in toilets, bus stations, petrol stations and public parks, frequently visited by addicts to "jack up". The heroin bags contained different sets of handwritten messages from ex-patients/recovered addicts encouraging the readers in an empathizing way to call the helpline.

(credit JWT Bahrain)

the Axe Effect

Axe's positioning is all about masculine sexual attractiveness. How do you portray that in the Middle East without offending anyone? I wonder.

(credit to Lowe Dubai)

Homegrown comics

"Now is the new era of the homegrown Arab superhero, four of them in fact - and they look likely to give their made-in-America counterparts a run for their money.
That, at least, is the ambition of a young Egyptian company that is producing, for the first time, comic books whose main characters aren't denizens of New York or Gotham City but instead Cairo and other - sometimes imaginary - regional capitals like the "City of All Faiths." (Dailystar, Beirut - Lebanon)