Communicate Levant | Mar 2011

Levant Edition • The marketing and advertising resource • March 2011 • Issue N°11 • communicatelevant.com

Both sides of the story: FP7’s Tarek Miknas on agency-client partnerships Page 44

AWARDS Glass act Last month the MENA Cristals kicked off the Middle East’s awards season.

Communicate Levant joined the party to bring back the news, gossip and controversy. Plus a full list (Page 26) of winners.

MARKETING Commons good The gag goes: The Middle East’s idea of copyright is when you see something you like, you copy. Right?

Wrong, say the people at Creative Commons, the non-profit behind licenses that let everyone control how their work is used. (Page 38)

Different strokes: OMD’s Maya Bou Ajram says Lebanon is worlds away from the GCC Page 41

Set rate: The Chimney Pot’s Henric Larsson on maximising production Page 36 budgets

BANKING ON YOUTH Why Lebanon’s financial service providers are turning their attention to younger customers

OPINION Question time We boldly ask a cross section of Lebanon’s media, marketing, and advertising community for the best advice they’ve been given. Now we know some of the tenets the industry lives by. And who used to lose her keys.

(Page 16)

CAMPAIGN Call of the wild

(Page 49) Cover Image: Getty Images

MediaquestCorp Egypt................... E£ 10 Jordan ................... JD 4 Kuwait ................ KD 1.2

Lebanon ........L£ 5 000 Morocco ............DH 22 Oman ............... OR 1.5

Qatar ................... QR 15 Saudi Arabia ........ SR 15 Switzerland .......... SFR 8

Syria .................. S£ 100 Tunisia ................ TD 2.5 U.A.E ...................DH 15

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR | MARCH 2011

Nick of time T

his month, I had in mind to tell you about all the behind-the-scenes action from the MENA Cristal Awards.

You’ll learn everything you’re supposed to know by reading our quite extensive coverage of the festival and of the agencies’ subsequent grabs (see page 26).

So I was thinking of spinning the tale of the after parties, the fish terrine that left so many people questioning the actual nature of the dish, the salacious comments and jokes on our last issue’s cover, the laughter and the anger, the drinking and the dancing…

You know.

Then something happened.

I received a request on Facebook. From my daughter.

To say I wasn’t hoping that anything like this wouldn’t occur before she hit, say, 25 or 30, would be sheer hypocrisy.

For someone who had always felt that in her particular case, aging was some kind of clerical error that would eventually be corrected, the realization that time flies – and worse, that the faster you grow old, the faster it flies – could be a lifechanging moment.

One aunt of mine announced, when she turned 50, that she would defeat time by whatever means required.

Well, I’m pushing 40 and I don’t plan to launch such a battle against the only certainty that we have: Time moves forward, and takes us along for

the ride. But funnily enough, and as you have probably often experienced, traveling back in time is possible. When you smell certain odors, your mind takes this weird jump into an invisible wormhole taking you back to a different place and time.

The same goes for certain songs. I could mention several music hits from the 80s that have this effect on me, but I don’t dare utter their names here. Clearly, this decade’s commercial production wasn’t the highest point in music’s history (“Tarzan boy” anybody?). Suffice to say that the beloved 80s – with the permed hair, green eyeliner, white suits and huge shoulderpads – are 25 years old, and so is (almost) my sweet 16.

Being a teenager in the 80s was quite fun, if it weren’t for the devastating war that many grew up amid. You probably remember the summer of 1988, when the Lebanese pound had been drastically devalued, but no new bank notes issued yet.

People would walk around with huge bundles of LBP1,000 notes in their pockets. No credit card or online payment then. Internet was a concept that would have gone beyond our wildest dreams (getting a landline to work in order to make a phone call was miracle enough then).

No wonder that today’s teenagers are so different than who we were at the same age.

The confusion of my children

when I tried to explain the concept of video tapes (yes, you had to rewind them) was eloquent enough.

With a new generation come new offerings, including from banks as we discover in our cover story (see page 18).

But it seems that this road still needs a lot of paving.

Education is the operative word in this case. Youngsters know a lot more than we used to at the same age, but they still have a lot of catching up to do and we, grown-ups, are supposedly here to guide them.

The proof is in the pudding: some time ago, a pretty young thing (PYT, as the King of Pop would have said in the 80’s) behind the wheel of a huge 4X4 was driving in front of me. She couldn’t have been more than 20. I saw her left blinker and was about to pass her on her right side, expecting her to turn left, naturally, when instead she turned right. Our cars almost collided. PYT jumped down from her SUV and started shouting in a complete FUBAR mode: “I used my blinker to tell you where you were supposed to go!” Well, when I was her age, even I knew how to use a blinker. And the best part is that today, I can tell everybody about her on Facebook. So there!

Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs.

Nathalie Bontems, editor editor@communicatelevant.com

Communicate Levant I 5

Contents

MARCH 2011 | CONTENTS

COVER: Doing it for the kids 18

22

Save the children: An increasing number of Lebanese banks are coming up with new offerings addressing youth, a largely overlooked segment.

Communicate Levant asks them why they are doing this now, and how they are going about it Q&A. Back to school: Visa’s corporate communications manager Lama Kabbani on why kids should know more about personal finance

SPECIAL REPORT: MENA Cristal Awards 26 28 32 34

Getting Cristallized: An overview of how the sixth edition of the ad festival fared The awards: Who won what The work: Cristal winners in pictures The party: Snaps of the celebrations

NEWS 8 10 11 12 13 14

THE COMMUNIQUESTION 16

FEATURES 36

38 41 42

Advertising. Leo Burnett’s internal revolution Advertising. Memac Ogilvy Jordan and local creative agency Advize merge Production. Intaj produces new Johnnie Walker campaign Outdoor. Pikasso awards unveiled Agencies. Harfouche takes over top job at MCN Outdoor. Decaux trials free bicycle scheme in Doha

We ask the industry: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Television. The Chimney Pot’s Henric Larsson on how to make the best of your post-production budget Media. The rights stuff: Non-profit Creative Commons hopes to simplify copyright licensing and free up the world’s content Media. Reverse psychology: OMD Beirut’s Maya Bou Ajram says Lebanon is a world apart from the GCC Media. Buyer beware: Online scammers are targeting US media shops

DEPARTMENTS 44

45 46 50

Guest Opinion. Hand-in-hand: Fortune Promoseven’s Tarek Miknas says agencies and their clients can achieve more all round if they work as a team Blogosphere. What the Web is saying Work. Selections from the regional and international creative scenes Drive By: One blogger’s take on Beirut’s billboards

MARCH 2011 Medialeader SAL, Azar bldg, 5th floor, Dimitri Al Hayek st, Sin el Fil-Horsh Tabet, Beirut, Lebanon, Tel: (961) 1 492 801/2/3

CO-CEO Alexandre Hawari CO-CEO Julien Hawari MANAGING DIRECTOR Ayman Haydar CFO Abdul Rahman Siddiqui GENERAL MANAGER Simon O’Herlihy CREATIVE DIRECTOR Aziz Kamel ONLINE DIRECTOR Rony Nassour DISTRIBUTION & SUBSCRIPTION DIRECTOR JP Nair, jp@mediaquestcorp.com COUNTRY MANAGERS Lebanon: Nathalie Bontems,

nathalie@mediaquestcorp.com, (961) 1 492801/2/3 Saudi Arabia: Tarek Abu Hamzy, tarekah@mediaquestcorp.com, Tel: (966) 50 814 50 90 North Africa: Adil Abdel Wahab, adel@medialeader.biz, Tel: (213) 661 562 660

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FOUNDER Yasser Hawari MANAGING DIRECTOR Julien Hawari EDITOR Nathalie Bontems MANAGING EDITOR Austyn Allison GROUP MANAGING EDITOR Siobhan Adams SENIOR SUB EDITOR Elizabeth McGlynn SUB EDITOR Salil Kumar CONTRIBUTORS Vanessa Khalil, Rania Habib CREATIVE DIRECTOR Aziz Kamel ART DIRECTOR Sheela Jeevan ART CONTRIBUTORS Aya Farhat, Samer Hamadeh EXTERNAL AFFAIRS Manuel

Dias, Maguy Panagga, Catherine Dobarro, Randa Khoury, Lila Schoepf, Laurent Bernard RESPONSIBLE DIRECTOR Denise Mechantaf PRINTERS Raidy Printing Group ADVERTISING The Gulf MEDIALEADER, PO Box 72184, Dubai Media City, Al Thuraya Tower 2, Office 2402, Dubai, Tel: (971) 4 391 0760, Fax: (971) 4 390 8737, sales@mediaquestcorp.com Lebanon Peggy El Zyr, peggy@mediaquestcorp. com, Tel: (961) 70 40 45 44 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Tarek Abu Hamzy, tarekah@mediaquestcorp.com, Tel: (966) 1 419 40 61, Ghassan A. Rbeiz, ghassan@ mediaquestcorp.com, Fax: (966) 1 419 41 32, P.O.Box: 14303, Riyadh 11424, Europe S.C.C Arabies, 18, rue de Varize, 75016 Paris, France, Tel: (33) 01 47 664600, Fax: (33) 01 43 807362, Lebanon MEDIALEADER Beirut, Lebanon, Tel: (961) 1 202 369, Fax: (961) 1 202 369 WEBSITE www.communicatelevant.com

MARCH 2011 | REGIONAL NEWS

Major changes at Leo Burnett

Beirut. On January 16, Leo Burnett MENA announced that Bechara Mouzannar, previously the regional executive creative director, had been named chief creative officer for the Middle East and North Africa region, taking over from Farid Chehab who will remain as honorary chairman and adviser to the MENA management board.

Mouzannar was the first executive creative director in the MENA region to be ranked among the Big Won report's top 50 best executive creative directors worldwide (he ranked 29th).

Malek Ghorayeb, who used to act as regional executive creative director for LB Dubai, Kuwait, and the Lower Gulf region, will take on a larger regional creative role for the Levant, to include Iraq, Syria and Jordan.

Australian national Peter Bidenko will be handed Ghorayeb's position in Dubai, effective March 15.

Bidenko, who boasts 11 Cannes Lions among other awards, is an

I MARKETING Davidoff celebrates Valentine's Day Beirut. For the third year in a row, cigarettes brand Davidoff celebrated Valentine's Day with a giveaway event.

8 I Communicate Levant

integrated creative director with more than 20 years' industry experience in advertising, direct and digital.

In Kuwait, Joe Ghazal, formerly of BBDO Cairo, will replace creative director Michel Sarkis, who will move to the Dubai office.

Areej Mahmoud, who has been with LB for six-and-a-half years, is now heading the creative team in Lebanon (including P&G's Pert brand).

Yasmina Baz has been named creative director for Max Factor, Koleston and Herbal Essences from P&G at a regional level, and will also have an experiential role on P&G brands.

Patrick Honein, who used to work in KSA, moved to Beirut as digital creative director.

Former regional communication director Carole Hanna has been named head of human resources for the Levant region. Regarding public relations, Jo Chemali has been named general managing director of PR for the Levant, while Mounir CamelToueg has been named PR manager.

In five Beirut nightlife venues, Davidoff models gave a red rose to women, while smokers were given an exclusive packet of Black & White cigarettes and a complimentary Davidoff lighter. A Blackberry Bold 3 was also up for grabs.

V I ADVERTISING Y&R drops Alfa account Beirut. After winning the Alfa business account in March 2010, Y&R announced in January that they have decided to part ways with Alfa, one of the two Lebanese mobile phone operators. Y&R did not divulge the reasons why, citing only differences which led to such a decision being made. Alfa was unavailable to comment on this termination.

Leo Burnett's new grabs Beirut. Leo Burnett has bagged three new accounts. The first is drapery and textiles manufacturer Warde, which left its former advertising agency Mind the Gap. A campaign has already been released for the sales season around the theme “Times change”.

Leo Burnett will be tasked with building the Lebanese brand on new grounds, and developing its communication strategy.

In December 2010, Libanpost chose Leo Burnett reportedly against M&C Saatchi during a mini pitch; the deal was made official in January. Leo Burnett is expected to take Libanpost's image beyond that of a simple mailing company. Last, mobile phone operator Alfa, that used to work with Leo Burnett up until 2009 before moving to Young & Rubicam (see above), is back with LB, allegedly without even holding a pitch but on a straightforward decision. The PR arm of Leo Burnett also won a new account with Beit Misk, and is currently pitching for several others.

On the move

Beirut. Thierry Secheresse has been appointed creative director at TBWA/Rizk.

Franco-Canadian Secheresse has been working as executive creative director for Eastern Europe/Russia and Africa/North Africa, for networks such as JWT, McCann, Leo Burnett, Lowe and FCB. He has been working with clients such as Kellogg's, Vodacom, Kraft, JTI, France Telecom, Visa, Mazda, Hyundai, Unilever, and Nestle.

Ralph El Kahi, Spinney's Lebanon marketing manager, has been promoted to group advertising and communications manager. His new responsibilities include planning and overseeing the advertising and communications activities in Lebanon, Qatar and Jordan, while providing support to Egypt operations.  I MEDIA

Mindshare relocates its offices

Beirut. Mindshare has relocated its Lebanese offices. During the cocktail reception, held at the new premises in Sodeco Square, Hana Khatib, managing director of Mindshare Lebanon, said “Our office relocation and expansion plan represents a significant milestone in the continuous growth of Mindshare Lebanon.

While the agency has been operating in Lebanon for more than 10 years, this expansion re-confirms our commitment to clients and staff, as well as our local community.”

LBC Sat acquires two new TV shows Beirut. LBC Sat, which has lately revamped both its image and logo, will launch two new TV shows acquired in 2011.

LBC SAT bought NBC Universal's format Top Chef, a reality show in which chefs compete against each other in culinary challenges. An Arabic version will be launched in the Middle East.

LBC Sat also acquired the global format A Star's Life in Lyrics, created by French station France 2 under the title Dans l'univers de... The concept has Arab celebrities revealing themselves through songs and lyrics they like.

The station's Arabic version of Fremantle hit show Celebrity Duets will be renewed for a second season,

MARCH 2011 | REGIONAL NEWS

MemacOgilvy Jordan and Advize merge

Amman. The Jordan operation of Memac Ogilvy merged with Advize, one of the leading creative agencies in the kingdom, formerly part of the Grey network as Advize Grey.

The merger had been in the pipeline since last November, and the new entity will be headed by Advize's CEO and founder Mohammad Kamal, who explains: “The merger will combine Advize's strong creative focus and local knowledge

with MemacOgilvy's strong strategic and disciplined approach to client servicing. MemacOglivy has the strength to support us regionally, but more importantly we share a common passion for being successful. It is quite generic to say this, but rarely actually found.”

Advize, which was established in 2004, brings on board a staff of 30 people, as does MemacOgilvy.

Kamal adds that his agency will also carry in its portfolio of clients,

including Total Gas & Oil, online company wi-tribe Jordan, and Al Mahmoudia Vehicle Trading Co (that represents Land Rover).

The merger, that was activated on the second week of January, will be formally announced in March.

“This is something everybody was looking forward to. The Jordanian industry has its eyes on us:two very well-established agencies joining forces,” says Kamal.

ing from performing arts (singing, playing music, dancing, composing) to creative arts (fashion design and others). “All these categories are

searchable by country, age, nationality, etcetera,” says el Boustany. “[TV] shows and programs have become something like recruitment agencies; out of 500 candidates, they take two or three. What will then become of the others?”

Candidates create a page on Shuhra where 10 pieces of work (video, audio, or photo) can be uploaded. A “Starmeter” online tool measures the rise and popularity of the artist.

Primedigiko was established a year ago; Shuhra.com is its first branded product, another one is in the pipeline.

I ONLINE Shuhra.com aims to become the first Arab talent online community Beirut. Launched two months ago, online platform Shuhra.com aims to become the first online Arab talent community. “Global sites like YouTube, Myspace and others have high reach, but have become a bit too wide; Arab talents are lost in this jungle,” says Said el Boustany, managing director of Primedigiko, the company behind the website.

Available in English and Arabic, Shuhra.com registered 300 users so far, divided into categories rang-

Continued from page 8 while dubbed Indian movies, starring Bollywood celebrities, are also planned.

Tax on Syrian media replaced by another tax system Damascus. New Syrian Law 20/2011 suppressed a tax on media imposed by the Arab Advertising Organization (AAO, a public organism under the umbrella of the Ministry of Information). Said tax could reach up to 30 percent of revenues on certain types of print adverts.

However, this tax will be replaced by another 10 percent tax on total ad revenues that will be paid directly to the government.

The AAO will also maintain a 20 percent tax on advertising billboards and is currently studying another tax on radio ads.

Alain Yazbeck heads new media representation company

Beirut. Alain Yazbeck just launched and heads Media Unit, a new company that represents the Al Mustaqbal and The Daily Star newspapers and their websites, in lieu of Future Media Services (FMS) that Yazbeck used to manage as well after he left his position as GM of Universal Media Beirut.

Established on December 1, 2010, Media Unit will specialize in news, business, TV content and digital media I MARKETING

I MARKETING Fawaz Holding hosts Ballantine's whisky master class workshops Beirut. Pernod Ricard and Fawaz

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Holding organized in February three consecutive master class workshop sessions dedicated to the media and clients. The sessions were moderated

by International Brand Ambassador

Ian Logan who presented the story of Ballantine's whisky, the second largest Scotch whisky globally and the number-one-selling Scotch whisky in Europe.

Western Union sponsors Club Sagesse basketball team Beirut. Global payment services provider Western Union sponsored Lebanese basketball team Club Sagesse's participation in the 22nd Dubai International Basketball Tournament, held in Dubai from January 22nd to January 30th.

Marc Aubry, Western Union's marketing director for the Middle East and Africa, said, “Western Union

REGIONAL NEWS | MARCH 2011

Intaj produces new Johnnie Walker campaign

has long been committed to fostering the development of team sports in the region. The Sagesse basketball team is a winning team both at national and regional levels; we are very proud they are going to represent us in this tournament.” Alas, Sagesse forfeited the championship, not appearing on court for the last game, playing for third place.

Starmanship & Associates partners up with Persona Global

Beirut. H&C Leo Burnett teamed up with production house Intaj to release a new “Keep walking” campaign for Johnnie Walker, as part of the Diageo blended Scotch whisky brand's “Walk with Giants” series, adapted to various particular markets.

As it did with global giants such as Richard Branson, Jenson Button, Greg Norman, and Ethiopian runner Haile Gebreselassie, the campaign tells the story of Lebanese innovative architect Bernard Khoury, and consists of a TVC, trailer, podcasts

and visuals, which tell Khoury's story in correlation with some of his architectural accomplishments.

“It was an extremely challenging project from the production point of view,” says Peter Mouracade, group communication director at H&C Leo Burnett.

“The real challenge was to maintain the standards of production we are known for, while adopting a documentary style of production,” says Danielle Moussalli, managing director at Intaj.

“It's not like we improvised on the day of the shoot, because we knew what we wanted to say,” adds Mouracade.“But we didn't stage any of it either, because everything that was said was said by Bernard, and everything comes out so natural in the copy becausewww it's not staged.”

Roy Diab, marketing manager for whisky, Middle East and North Africa, at Diageo, says, “the global team is extremely happy with [the campaign] so we might be airing it outside Lebanon, but it's not yet confirmed.”

CAMARO Chevy Press Release.indd 1

VI ADVERTISING Impact's February work Beirut. Two major campaigns went under the spotlight for Impact BBDO Beirut last month.

The first one, named “All eyes on Samoa,” was an ambient operation designed to create brand awareness

on the new Lebanese make-up brand, Samoa's mascara.

The agency “dressed up” electric poles and cables as Samoa mascara, to offer a real-life representation of the mascara brush extending and magnifying eyelashes.

The Samsung “Battery” campaign featured elderly people

in two humorous situations, in order to highlight the efficiency and “long life” of the Samsung Notebook's battery, a very important factor for laptop users according to Impact BBDO, and a subject that the agency considered extremely exploited when it comes to communication.

Beirut. Training and consulting services provider Starmanship & Associates launched its fifth affiliation with Persona Global, a company providing metrics and methodologies for organizational development, founded in 1980.

PG is currently serving businesses in 70 countries and providing its solutions in more than 30 languages.

Chevrolet's global recognition

Beirut. In 2010, Chevrolet became the fith most sold automotive brand in Lebanon, according to the local association of car importers.

SPARK CRUZE MALIBU TRAVERSE “We are very proud of the global recognition that Chevrolet has acquired and even more so of our great history and success in Lebanon,” says Farid Homsi, general manager of Impex, the exclusive dealer of Chevrolet and Cadillac brands in Lebanon. I ONLINE Two new online discount websites hit Lebanese market Beirut. After GoNabit.com, Makhsoom. com and Cobone.com are now avail able in Lebanon. Using the concept

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TAHOE 2/14/11 11:25 AM

MARCH 2011 | REGIONAL NEWS

Pikasso d'Or awards unveiled

Continued from page 11 of group purchasing, the websites offer goods and services at heavily discounted prices.

I AWARDS Ipsos Lebanon participates in the first Product of the Year event in Lebanon Beirut. Ipsos Lebanon has partnered with Product of the Year ME Lebanon SAL, in its first local competition launched in 2010. Ipsos handled the consumers' survey that contributed to the selection of the products participating in the quality contest.

On January 26, 2011, Product of the Year ME announced the 41 local and international winning products for 2011 that received awards.

Janine Nassar, head of the research division at Ipsos Lebanon, explained the consumer voting process – executed as per the standards of Product of the Year International: 1,200 consumers chose the most innovative, attractive and satisfactory product from each category. A global score was then created to find the winning products.

Separately, Ipsos offered the 41 winners a free participation in its Omnibus survey 2011.

Beirut. On February 18, the Pikasso d'Or awards named the best posters featured on the Lebanese outdoor supplier's network in 2010.

For this 18th edition, the jury made its selection from the 92 entries (49 campaigns) that were submitted by 20 agencies.

The Gold Pikasso was awarded to the Zaatar w Zeit FIFA World

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Cup campaign designed by agency Nineteen 84 (this campaign also won the Multivisuals award); the Silver Pikasso went to the Pepsi Paul the octopus campaign by Impact BBDO; and Leo Burnett's Kraft Trident ad walked away with Bronze.

A Jury Special Prize was given to the Al Hadaf classified newspaper series by Spirit.

The Citizen Billboard was awarded to the M&C Saatchi Bahr Lubnan campaign; M&C Saatchi also grabbed the Unipole Prize for its MTC Touch campaign; Leo Burnett walked away with the Rooftop Prize for its Exotica Weddings ad; Horizon DraftFCB won the Bus Prize for its Glade campaign, and the new Malls Award for its Chateau Musar visual.

Credit Suisse hailed by Euromoney magazine Beirut. Leading publication on global banking and capital markets Euromoney's Private Banking Survey 2011 named Credit Suisse best private bank in Lebanon. Fady Eid, chairman and general manager of Credit Suisse in Lebanon, said, “Beirut has a special significance for Credit Suisse because it was here that we established our first foothold in the Middle East more than 40 years ago.”

REGIONAL NEWS | MARCH 2011

MCN appoints Harfouche as group CEO

 I PRINT

Former managing director of Choueiri Group’s MEMS to join network at beginning of second quarter

Dubai. The Middle East Communications Network (MCN) – an advertising, media and communications holding group – has appointed Ghassan Harfouche as group CEO. Harfouche, the managing director of Choueiri Group’s Middle East Media Services (MEMS), will join MCN at the beginning of the second quarter this year. He will replace Fadi Salameh, who joined the MCN group in 1992 and will be ending his service at the end of March.

Akram Miknas, chairman of MCN, says, “I am convinced that Ghassan – known as a great, fair and transparent leader and communicator, with his enthusiasm and knowledge of the industry and region, and his strong strategic focus, energy and passion – will lead the operating companies to drive the success of our group in transforming brands and growing our clients’ businesses.”

Harfouche will be leading the process of developing and driving the vision for the future of MCN,

says the company in a release. He will be “identifying new growth opportunities in the region, and connecting the dots to maximize integration between the operating companies and between MCN and its parent IPG/McCann Worldgroup.

Harfouche says, “I am delighted to work closely with the outstanding leaders of MCN’s network in driving the vision for the group and nurturing further collaboration and integration within the different entities and enhancing the culture of creativity and innovation, which I am confident will produce distinctive communication solutions for our clients’ businesses.”

Commenting on Salameh’s departure at the end of March, Miknas says, “MCN would not be where it is today without Fadi Salameh. We all know that Fadi took a personal decision three years ago to leave his position by March 31, 2011. We have been truly saddened by his decision.

His succession was carefully planned by the MCN Board and Fadi.”

No Glamour in Middle East Dubai. A source at ITP has denied market rumors that the business and consumer magazine publisher will be launching Glamour magazine in the Middle East.

The international publisher of the women’s title, Conde Nast Publications, had not responded to Communicate’s queries at the time of going to press.

ITP doesn’t have plans to launch the magazine in the near future, says Communicate’s source, who asked not to be named. The publishing house will, however, be launching the Middle East edition of women’s magazine Cosmopolitan in April.

Melwyn Gonsalves, group media director at media agency UM, says he doesn’t know of plans for the title. However, ITP will also be launching Time Out Style, but not as a standalone publication. “It’s a magazine that will be released once in six months and distributed free with Time Out,” he says.

Asked whether there is room for more women’s magazines in the region’s saturated market, Gonsalves is optimistic. “Cosmopolitan is a [magazine] a lot of people are looking forward to because it is very interesting from a content point of view,” he says. “If their international content standards are anything to go by, then I think it will be quite a treat to look forward to.”

“Even though there are a lot of existing titles, I think the major concern has been the quality of content,” he says.  I TELEVISION Sky News Arabia appoints Nart Bouran as director of news Abu Dhabi. Sky News Arabia has appointed Nart Bouran as director of news for its 24-hour Arabic rolling news channel, due to launch in spring 2012.

Bouran joins Sky News Arabia from Thomson Reuters, where he was director of television for the Reuters news agency.

He will have overall responsibility for the channel, including delivering its editorial standards and business goals, says Sky in a release.

His appointment is the first big hire for Sky News Arabia, a joint venture between Sky News in the UK and Abu Dhabi Media Investment Company in the UAE.

 I DIGITAL Nearly half of Internet surfers use mobile Web Dubai. Forty-five percent of Internet surfers in the UAE use mobile phones to access the Web, according to a survey of more than 12,700 people across the Middle East and North Africa. More than 71 percent of mobile Internet users ranked e-mail as their biggest mobile Internet activity in the survey conducted by online marketing intelligence company Effective Measure and Spot On Public Relations.

“People are increasingly using mobiles as Internet access devices in the Middle East and are starting to access social networks as well as news, sport and other information services using their mobiles,” says Brendon Ogilvy, vice-president of digital insights at Effective Measure. “The primary application for mobiles is still e-mail, but more than 85 percent of users have downloaded mobile applications for their devices, and the spread of services being accessed is very wide.”

“Social networking, in particular, is a strong and growing trend, with 40 percent of women who use the mobile Internet doing so to access social networks,” he adds.

ADMC’s new games division releases Cricket Power: ICC World Cup 2011 Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi Media Company (ADMC), the multiplatform media and entertainment organization, officially launched the game Cricket Power: ICC World Cup 2011 on Feb. 14.

The game is the first product from new studio Karkadann Games, which ADMC launched at the end of January. It was released in time for the ICC Cricket World Cup, which kicked off on Feb. 19.

The studio will be releasing another game, Manny Pacquiao Pound For Pound (a working title), in mid2011, and will showcase regional stories and characters through many of its future titles.

Communicate Levant I 13

MARCH 2011 | REGIONAL NEWS

Decaux introduces self-service bicycles in Doha

Doha. The Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning in Doha, and outdoor supplier Q Media Decaux have launched a range of self-service bicycles called Q Bike. A sample station of bicycles has been set up on the corniche. Decaux says the service is considered the first of its kind in the Middle East.

A trial period of two months has been allocated to assess the service and consider a city-wide development of the scheme. The initiative seeks to promote eco-friendly transport modes, help ease the exponentially growing traffic in Doha, and promote regular physical exercise, says Decaux in a release.

Continued from page 13 David Ortiz is general manager of Karkadann Games. He is tasked with overseeing the strategic development of the studio and a team comprised of regional and international game designers.

Outgoing ADMC CEO Ed Borgerding says, “Our aim is to lead the development of the media industry in the region, from a business, innovation and audience engagement perspective. The future development of our company depends on broadening our offering, and leveraging our leadership position to pursue digital opportunities.”

Between Feb.5 and Apr. 5, residents and tourists can ride the bicycles on a dedicated track on the corniche from 3pm to 8pm. The service is free. Cyclists will be required to give their ID number to an operator in exchange for a bicycle and helmet.

Both must be returned to the Q Bike station by 8pm.

“Gaming is currently the fastest-growing entertainment sector worldwide,” he adds.

“Karkadann Games represents a strategic addition to our existing media entertainment offering and a new milestone of audience engagement.”

 I ADVERTISING Du launches new brand campaign Dubai. Du has launched its new brand campaign, “Open your Heart.” It is the UAE telco’s first brand (as opposed to product-specific) work since the company launched with “Water” in 2006.

Announcing the campaign, du’s vice-president of brand and communications, Ashish Banerjee, showed press the brief to which creative agency LeoBurnett worked. It begins with the line, “We all know the only

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constant is change,” and ends with “Welcome to du, again.”

“What has happened now is that our business and our network and other aspects of our business are way ahead of where some people might think,” says Banerjee.

“So what we wanted to do was put in the market a campaign that helped people see us through fresh eyes,” he adds.

Creative agency Leo Burnett “responded magnificently,” says Banerjee, to a brief that required a degree of humility.

The campaign features two 50-second TV spots called “Beat” and “Pulse,” shot in the UAE with UAE-based actors. They show the landscape moving to a heartbeat or sound wave.

Seven print ads and an online campaign complement the TVCs. The campaign’s duration has not yet been decided, but it is probably going to run for a long time, says Carl Atallah, director-planning at du’s media agency OMD. Outdoor ads will run on the oversize billboards du has favored in the past.

DDB Dubai develops campaign for music download site launch Dubai. Music Master, a Middle Eastbased music distribution business, launched music download website Musicmaster.com in February with an advertising campaign using QR (quick response) codes. A QR code is a barcode that customers can photograph with their smart phones to be directed to websites and other forms of information.

The campaign, “I am my music.

I am music master,” was developed by creative agency DDB Dubai. It encourages consumers to explore their individual musical tastes at the site. The advertisements feature ambient portraits of musicians made up from QR codes.

Within each of these portraits, live codes link to free downloads of the subject’s top 20 tracks. The

REGIONAL NEWS | MARCH 2011

The report, published annually by consultancy firm Holmes Group, included the Middle East category for the first time this year, says TRACCS in a statement.

According to the report’s assessment, the volume of business generated (just shy of $7.5 million in fees) makes TRACCS the only Middle Eastern firm to rank among the world’s top 100 independent public relations agencies.  I MEDIA three executions appear in malls around the UAE. The campaign is also supported in press, on radio and online. I PUBLIC RELATIONS TRACCS declared Middle East Consultancy of the year by Holmes Report Dubai. Trans-Arabian Creative Communications (TRACCS), a public relations network, has been named Middle East Consultancy of the Year 2011 by the Holmes Report.

ADMC CEO Ed Borgerding steps down Abu Dhabi. The Abu Dhabi Media Company (ADMC) announced the departure of CEO Ed Borgerding in early February. According to a press statement, Borgerding is leaving the company to concentrate on independent projects.

ADMC chief financial officer Frank Mooty has been appointed acting CEO of both ADMC and its wholly owned subsidiary Imagenation Abu Dhabi.

The search for a successor to Borgerding is ongoing.

VERY BRIEFS McCollins hosts Social Media Workshop at Middlesex University Dubai Baraem TV launches new grid for pre-school kids Branding agency Zaman to hold design competition for students Re-brand-ing gives three Arabic magazines a makeover Tahadi Games reports rapid growth in gamers since Saudi expansion

JWT wins Wild Wadi brief Tecom Investments Media Cluster and WSI host Digital Marketing Summit 2011 Zeenah wins best PR agency award in Oman NHK and Al Jazeera Children’s Channel sign co-production agreement Image Nation appoints Shimaa El Sayed as account manager Praias hires Image Nation as communications company Wolff Olins wins competitive pitch for Kuwait Finance House

Al Ittihad wins Golden Supplement award for sports coverage

Arabian Radio Network hires Cameron Plant as its sales director

Dubai 92 launches animated radio show

Expression wins California Garden and Americana

Communicate I 15

© Corbis

MARCH 2011 | OPINION

The Communiquestion

A word in your ear

We ask the industry: What’s the best advice you have ever received?

MAISSA ABOU ADAL GHANEM Head of corporate projects, Ets Abou Adal I picked the advice that I keep on hearing every day since I have been in Lebanon: “See your glass half full.” This is my husband’s favorite sentence.

EVITA HADDAD Operation manager, TBWA\Rizk Syria My mom said: “Trust me, the only way is to think like a man, act like a lady.” I found it offensive at first.

Why would one’s success depend on such a transsexual brain operation? Come to think of it, women have come a long way, but we still live in a man’s world (I hate to admit it, I live to deny it). I mean, from the GMs, the CEOs, the MDs, the ministers… How many women can you name? If playing ‘man’ will lead us to power, then why not do so to establish the ‘lady’s’ rule once up there?

ANTOINE GEADAH, Account director, Beauty Care MENAP at Grey Group My best advice is, “Good things come to those who wait.” Evolution comes with time and patience.

Unfortunately, no one gave me this advice; I had to learn it myself.

16 I Communicate Levant

MAYA ZANKHOUL Blogger and graphic designer I used to have different keychains for different keys, and constantly ended up forgetting the car key at home, or the home key at work. This caused unneeded additional stress, until someone told me, “Carry a very small bag, and put all your keys on one keychain.” It made my daily life and movements much smoother. Planning the small details makes it much less complicated.

RAAFAT KARIMÉ Creative business consultant in publishing and branding In business my advice is, “Someone smiling to you is to remind you that they have teeth.” So pay attention.

In life, in general, it’s: “If the newborn doesn’t cry, the mother won’t breastfeed him.” Nobody will know what you want or need if you don’t ask for it.

PHILIPPA CLAYRE Head of corporate communication, JWT MENA A senior creative chap once told me, “Never assume, because it makes an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’.” This piece of advice has stayed with me ever since and I can’t tell you what a lifesaver it has been at times and how I have kicked myself when I forgot it.

MARCH 2011 | COVER STORY

Š Corbis

18 I Communicate Levant

COVER STORY | MARCH 2011

Children's best interest Lebanon's financial institutions are targeting younger consumers. We find out why. by Vanessa Khalil “

T

he idea was to satisfy an unmet need,” says Roula Safi, business unit director at Impact BBDO Beirut, when asked about Blom Bank’s latest initiative, Blomshabeb.

Fortunately for the youth, there are now plenty of firms rushing to cater for them.

Starting in summer 2009, and throughout fall 2010, billboards, online forums and websites, viral ads, and other mediums of communication mushroomed as banks fought over a previously overlooked segment: the youth. Call it CSR, CRM, or XYZ, the banking sector’s newest undertaking did not go unnoticed.

The extra liquidity sloshing around in the system set the mood for all kinds of loans – personal, housing, start-up businesses, cars…

It was manna from heaven as far as banks were concerned; loans can take years to be fully repaid, but their profitability and that of other products are guaranteed and immediate.

“I believe the youth were overlooked because, in the short run, any program directed at them does not pay off instantly. There was no perceived immediate benefit in communicating with youngsters when it came to banking,” Safi says.

PAST TIMES. There was a period when banks focused exclusively on older, more or less affluent clients and tailored their products to meet this segment’s needs.

“We got a few things wrong these past three years,” admits Ronald Zirca, head of the marketing division, Banque Libano-Française. “We focused on housing and car loans because, since 2008, there has been this situation… Everyone was rushing to buy property and we developed products for that purpose.”

WHY NOW? In any market, one way of responding to a new product or service launched by a competitor is to make the same, but better, offering. The case of the recent youth-oriented campaigns is no different. Admittedly, execution strategies differ, and investments in new projects need justification – just because somebody else is doing it is not reason enough.

In August 2009, the Blomshabeb initiative stemmed from the bank’s slogan: Peace of Mind.

“We thought of expanding the idea to a public

that was not in touch with us. We wanted to know what that public perceives this idea to be,” says Pierre Abou Ezzi, assistant general manager of human resources at Blom Bank. Blomshabeb came as a response to people’s concerns about their children’s academic achievements and career aspirations.

“Of course, attracting a new clientele is certainly something to consider, but that was not Blomshabeb’s main goal,” says Safi, who worked closely with Blom Bank on the venture.

For George Awad, head of the retail banking division at Bank of Beirut, targeting the youth was a natural way to build a customer base.

“We started focusing on retail business eight years ago. Once we made sure we had covered an array of basic products, such as personal, housing, and car loans, addressing the youth was the next logical step,” he says with regard to the bank’s latest “U for Youth” campaign, which offers career guidance to university students.

At Banque Libano-Française, Zirca says, “An aging BLF clientele led us to consider approaching the youth seriously. Building a loyal younger portfolio is a challenging task; it gets easier if we start at an early age.”

Communicate Levant I 19

MARCH 2011 | COVER STORY

ROULA SAFI. Business unit director at Impact BBDO Beirut

DEFINING YOUTH. In Lebanon, a country where most people under 30 still live with their parents and are financially dependent on them, it is hard to properly define the youth segment.

Nonetheless, the recent packages and campaigns are devised with an age ceiling of 25 in mind.

That is regardless of segmentation strategies.

“BLF was the only bank to go through the segmentation process. There is no way you can communicate with all of them the same way,” Zirca says.

But segmentation was not a priority for Bank of Beirut. “We have been working closely with universities and students for a while. They are our main target. Let’s be realistic, teens under 18 are not bankable; they are just approaching the age of generating,” Awad says. Which, for Blomshabeb, which focuses on 15-year-olds and above, actually is an advantage. “At a young age, people are definitely not doing any banking. It would be more or less banking for the parents.

Youngsters don’t have the financial means,” Abou Ezzi says.

While some rationalize offering financial products to a somewhat unprofitable segment as CRM 101, others see no point in doing so until the segment becomes “bankable.”

RONALD ZIRCA. Head of the marketing division, Banque Libano-Française

TO BANK OR NOT TO BANK? Talking about limiting the program’s offerings to career orientation and guidance, Abou Ezzi says, “Blomshabeb falls under the framework of pure CSR. We made sure there is no banking product associated with the program.”

Products aimed at youngsters certainly need parents’ support and endorsement. For some, this doesn’t necessarily imply that the youngsters don’t need them. “As children grow older, youth

20 I Communicate Levant

package offerings progress from encouraging parents to save money for their children through preferential interest rates, to encouraging tweens and teens to take the initiative and ask for an account or card. They will want to project a certain image at that point,” Zirca says.

Asked how Bank of Beirut tailored its latest offering, Awad says: “Our products in the U for Youth campaign are a 3D bundle: debit card, credit card, and educational loan.” He says these are more about creating financial solutions for students. Even if not very profitable, due to low limits and preferential interest rates on credit cards, the package aims to teach students how to manage their finances and make savings plans.

“Anyone can get a credit card or an educational loan. Banks have been giving these away since forever. It was not about coming up with a new commercial plan,” Safi says.

COMMUNICATE. Products aside, the glitz and glamour of the advertising campaigns was a major, if not essential, tool to reach an on-themove, technology-driven and ad-savvy audience. “It is certainly a challenge for us to find the proper means to communicate with them.

Youth’s interest could always be somewhere else,” says Abou Ezzi.

However, there seems to be unanimous agreement on the segment that is hardest to get through to. “The 18- to 25-year-old segment is a hard one to tackle,” says Zirca. “You can have a 22-year-old who is proud of being young, and another who feels the opposite.”

Banks have had to find a middle ground in their communication strategies – between patronizing the youth and trying too hard

COVER STORY | MARCH 2011

to speak their language, both of which are undesirable extremes.

“Our approach was subtle. We wanted to project the image of Blom Bank as an elder brother who’s been there and done that, and is simply offering guidance. This is how you empower the youth, by giving them opportunities and a choice to grab them or not,” Safi says.

Tania Rizk, head of communications at Banque Libano-Française, developed, along with her team, an exhaustive campaign for teen packages: movie poster-like billboard ads, viral online ads, and guerilla advertising under the theme “The Independents.” “What we have tried to do specifically with this campaign is to go to them. Wherever we could find the youth, we went there,” she says.

Asked about the title of the package that is aimed at 14- to 18-year-olds, Rizk says: “The Independents is a state of mind. They [the youth] are the heroes in our story. Even if dependent from a financial standpoint, they still need to feel the opposite. After all, once they hold a card or account they begin to somehow learn to manage finances.”

Whether such combinations of communication and marketing strategies produce the desired effect remains to be seen. Banks are certainly making themselves seen and heard. “We are going after them, with an incentive,” Zirca says.

“When you offer high-tech and high-fashion products and discounts for the youth, you are speaking a universal language. You are sure to raise interest.”

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS. Whether banking to the youth is perceived as yet another fad, banks stand by their programs, which they believe

will exist on a continuous basis over the years, building up their future clientele. “This is not a one-shot program,” Safi says. “The youth are very vibrant. They are the ones most in touch with the future on both the technology and communication front. They are the future, and we need to build a platform for them.”

But, in the end, there is no guarantee the campaigns will pique young adults’ interests.

Issues such as the high rate of unemployment and emigration, especially when it comes to this segment, can’t be overlooked – in fact, they even put the availability of such a segment in doubt.

“Even if they are leaving, we are supporting them. We understand that around 40 percent of bank deposits in Lebanon are from expats. We want to build relationships with them, wherever they are,” Zirca says.

WINDOWS OF OPPORTUNITY. One advantage of capturing a younger audience is their adaptability to and acceptance of new technologies.

E-banking in Lebanon is moving forward, slowly but surely, and is bound to be a tool to attract the younger, tech-adept generation.

“The future lies in technology-based services.

In Lebanon we are always catching up with the world, but the pace of change is much faster with the youth,” says Abou Ezzi.

The more technologically advanced banks are, the more they will be attractive to the new generation. Of course, technology is no silver bullet. It may facilitate financial transactions, but it cannot appease the youth’s financial worries. “The youth are worried and insecure. When they feel there is genuine care and attention to their needs, they will be more interested in what Lebanon has to offer,” Safi says.

PIERRE ABOU EZZI. Assistant general manager of human resources at Blom Bank

GEORGE AWAD. Head of the retail banking division at Bank of Beirut

TANIA RIZK. Head of communications at Banque Libano-Française

Communicate Levant I 21

© Getty Images

Back to school

Visa’s communications manager tells Communicate Levant why there are lessons to be learned about handling money in the Middle East

V

isa wants kids in the Middle East to know more about money. So the credit card giant is running schemes and even advising teachers on how to handle finances. Lama Kabbani, corporate communications manager Middle East for Visa, explains the workings and aims of Visa’s Financial Literacy program in the Arab world.

What is the financial literacy program about?

This program is part of the company’s global commitment to provide 20 million people with financial literacy information by May 2013, and seeks to bring financial knowledge and literacy to students and adults. It incorporates the customized Mymoneyskills.me website, which features a free FIFA World Cup-branded educational video game designed to help people of all ages from the Middle East strengthen their knowledge of personal finance. Giving fundamental personal finance information in both Arabic and English, MyMoneySkills and Financial Football form an engaging platform for young people, families and schools to improve their financial literacy skills. The program was launched in the UAE in

22 I Communicate Levant

February 2010 and in Lebanon and Jordan the following month.

We made sure that we went to key markets where we had conferences, trying to work with schools and universities to bring it into the curriculum.

The game got a great response; Arabianbusiness. com put it on its website for more than a month; it had more than one million hits. On our website it’s quite difficult to monitor, but we have had approximately 4,000 to 5,000 connections per month.

It depends on what kind of activities we link the game to, but these are good numbers. Still, our job is not finished, we’re continuing to make direct contact with educational bodies to make sure that whatever is needed is made available to them.

We’re taking steps to reach the ultimate goal: to have them as part of their program.

Why select Lebanon and Jordan for such a program?

Lebanon and Jordan are key markets for us, especially with the high literacy rates in the region.

But we didn’t focus only on Lebanon and Jordan; this is part of a Middle East strategy. Visa has been conducting its Financial Literacy program all over

COVER STORY | MARCH 2011

the world for more than a decade. We brought the program that was done on a global level and customized it for the region. We translated a lot of documents; even the language was adapted in order to better fit the Arab culture.

What kind of research did you conduct on Lebanon and Jordan?

Actually, we didn’t. We started off when the financial crisis was happening. But with or without financial crisis, people need education. Financial education is not something that is really talked about, or that is really supplied in schools. We did research targeted at the GCC market, initiated at the Gulf Educational Supplies and Solutions event, which was held last year [in Dubai]. We have access to the database, so more than 120 teachers and heads of school were polled. More than 95 percent of them wanted to see financial education in the curriculum. Based on that response, we decided to launch the program.

How was the program conceived?

It’s really straightforward, more of a corporate communication and CSR educational campaign where you have the online activities and oneon-one presence. We don’t deal with marketing on this issue. The most important tool was the website, to have something to go back to. It addresses anyone looking for any kind of topics: how to monitor monthly expenses, how to pick up a mortgage, how to secure a credit card and so on. We also have a Facebook page and the online Financial Football game, which was conceived by our Financial Literacy team in the US and customized for different countries in the region to give it a more patriotic feeling.

The FIFA World Cup, which we sponsor globally, was a great occasion last year; even we have to admit that financial literacy can be boring sometimes, so we added this free online game – which can also be played on a CD we distributed to schools in the region. Basically, it tests your knowledge at different levels.

What's the next step?

We’re trying to establish a direct contact with educational bodies and schools. In the UAE, for example, we’re in touch with the KHDA, which is a body within the Ministry of Education that works with schools. We need third-party partners to help us go into the schools and universities.

At the end of the day, it’s not our duty to teach.

But what we can supply is material and content, which is all there. With so many years of us being an expert in the field, being a financial company, what would be better than to use our expertise to help people with their daily finances?

How many schools across the region are you talking to?

Last year we did a summer program with the Dubai College and two schools in Beirut. In the UAE, we’re looking at launching a pilot program and are currently looking at more schools with the KHDA, and in Lebanon, but we’re still in talks.

We’re hoping that by the beginning of the next

RIGHT MESSAGE. Kabbani says Visa is committed to providing financial literacy information academic year, a sufficient number of schools in the UAE and Lebanon will have joined. The priority is to have the course taught the right way, even if it’s only in one school, rather than have many schools not doing it right.

What kind of obstacles or challenges are you facing?

The only challenge we have is to get into the schools, especially when they need to have a third party to endorse this, and convince whoever is in charge to incorporate the program into the curriculum.

We understand that there are certain restrictions, guidelines, and standards, and that the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Finance have to be in tune. This is why we want to partner with the correct institutions based on their expertise on how to incorporate the program in the curriculum.

Schools need time to change a curriculum; they need to see the value of it.

And we found something else: teachers need to be trained. Of course, everybody has a bank account, everybody uses a card, but that doesn’t mean everybody is in a position to teach financial literacy. This is the phase that we are in now.

There is already material for the teachers to go through. We are training them on how to conduct such classes. But again, we cannot go directly to the teachers and tell them “This is how you’re going to have to teach this.” We present them with the material and they decide internally how to progress.

What kind of topics are you hoping teachers will tackle?

It depends on the age. We have something for all age groups, to prepare for the different life cycles that one goes through. Within each age group, we have, for example, the art of budgeting, getting a

Communicate Levant I 23

MARCH 2011 | COVER STORY

university loan, applying for a car loan, getting a credit card… With banks, you often have to read between the lines. When I got my first credit card, for example, I didn’t really know it was a loan, but it is.

There’s wide diversity in the region in terms of public exposure and use of such financial products and services. How do you hope to bridge this gap?

To be honest, the age group that we are mostly targeting – the school-leaving age – is quite homogenous in terms of their spending habits or in how they enter the banking system. So there isn’t really much difference in the way they handle their personal finances. We find a difference maybe between children from expat families and children coming from Arab families, just because, from an Arab point of view, we don’t really talk a lot about money. You’re not supposed to openly discuss your finances with someone.

This is why we are also addressing families; we are conducting a kind of “parents think tank” in the UAE, just as a start to see what the different views from a cultural perspective are, and to help them assess how you can start at home. And so far we are getting a very good response from this circle of parents. A lot of parents today, instead of giving cash, give a prepaid card so they can set a limit for a weekly or monthly allowance and tell their child, “This is how you’re going to handle it.”

ONLINE TOOL. Mymoneyskills.me features a World Cup-branded educational video game YES

VISA POLLS UAE EDUCATION PROFESSIONALS Is understanding how to manage money an important skill for young people to have?

NO

Do you currently teach money management skills in your school?

4% 27 %

96 % 96%

Do you think teaching a basic understanding of money management should be compulsory?

8%

73 %

Would you like to see financial literacy taught as part of the curriculum?

5%

92 % 95 %

24 I Communicate Levant

Many banks, at least in Lebanon, are now targeting youth. Why do you think there is now such an interest in that specific segment?

There are several reasons. With the economic crisis, people are more aware, youngsters are savvier, and they want to know why this crisis happened, what led to this. They’re becoming more independent, they want to have their own finances, different from that of their parents.

On the other hand, with social media, there’s so much information out there; it has become easy to apply online, you don’t have to go and visit the branch to get a card. Different kinds of tools have made that banking facility easier.

And I hope our efforts are reaching out there and that youngsters are more aware of how to handle their personal finances. But the most important thing is how education starts at home and in the schools.

In the US it took 10 years for schools and universities to have this as part of their curriculum. We try to slowly bring to the region the many activities that are done at a global level.

For example, Visa sponsors the Chicago Federal Bank reserve, which does a yearly summit on financial literacy also sponsored by Visa. Every year, together, we come up with new tools and programs. It’s already started over there and this is what we’re striving for in the region.

How does such a program contribute to better positioning Visa in the region?

A lot of people ask us why Visa is doing this. At the end of the day, banks are our clients; we don’t have much direct contact with consumers. But improving financial education will benefit everyone.

MARCH 2011 | ADVERTISING

Cristal ball

Did the predictions ring true? We bring you the winners and losers from this year’s advertising festival

by Nathalie Bontems

I

t has been a while since the MENA Cristal advertising festival has seen so much snow. The event, held at the Mzaar ski resort, from Jan. 31 to Feb. 4, enjoyed a one-day storm last year, but that paled in comparison with the heavy snow this year. And, despite the freezing temperature outside, the atmosphere inside was certainly hot – and not just because of the enjoyable spirits and all-night partying.

FIRST THE SLEAZE. Despite the political unrest that shook the streets of Beirut just one week before the four-day event, around 600 advertising, marketing and media players headed up the Lebanese mountains. This affluence translated into a busy, sometimes cramped gathering.

With companies such as Rotana Media Services, Drive Dentsu, Menacom, Y&R, FP7, and TBWA, among others, joining the competition or heavily increasing their participation, the festival, which had often been dominated by the likes of JWT and Leo Burnett, gained in diversity as reflected in the awards distribution.

26 I Communicate Levant

But this didn’t happen without a cost: Early evenings were marked by a recurrent discussion on where to eat, as many of the official venues were fully booked.

Tensions started to run high when FP7 Bahrain and its client telco provider, Batelco, swept five of the eight Cyber Cristals, including the Grand Cristal, plus a handful of Media awards.

Whether resentment explains why so few people attended the FP7 debate on “The evolution will not be televised” the next morning is hard to tell, although Fadi Yaish, FP7’s creative director, seemed to think so, calling on fellow agencies to adopt fair play and applaud his team during the official awards night, after FP7 Bahrain was named agency of the year and FP7 was awarded Network of the Year - while OMD was named Media Agency of the Year.

To give a general idea, Leo Burnett walked away with 17 Cristals and Grand Cristals, Impact BBDO 14, JWT 10, TBWA/Raad 9, OMD 8, and FP7 24, particularly impressive considering the ghost-ad scandal that hit the network in 2009 (FP7 Doha was stripped of seven of its Dubai

ADVERTISING | MARCH 2011

Lynx awards as well as its Agency of the Year title for having submitted entries that had never run, plus one campaign for a client they didn’t have, Samsung). Yaish said FP7 was back and had much more in store for 2011.

Electricity was also in the air when a short film celebrating the achievements of the media businessman of the year, Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal, represented by RMS’s president, Nizar Nagro, aired. The production received a fairly mixed response from a public more inclined to salute the recent upheaval in Egypt than the Saudi tycoon’s fortunes. And again, when a muchanticipated debate on controversial creativity, involving Fouad Abdel Malak, executive creative director at Impact BBDO UAE; Assaad Douaihy, group regional creative director at Intermarkets; Daniel Georr, chief creative officer at FP7; and Ramsey Naja, chief creative officer at JWT MENA, became heated, the crowd left disappointed and upset.

WIND OF CHANGE. On the upside, the 6th edition of the MENA Cristal awards provided an excellent occasion to meet the industry’s new faces, and congratulate those who climbed a step higher on their career ladder. From Dani Richa, who had just celebrated Impact BBDO’s 40th anniversary, and named CEO of the network, to Bechara Mouzanar, who had recently been appointed chief creative officer at Leo Burnett MENA, to name just a few.

Change was also at the core of various panels and discussions, much as it has been since the emergence of social media. In a presentation on online content optimization, Ahmed Nassef, vice-president and managing director of Yahoo Maktoob, warned against the downfall of newspapers, saying print papers reach 66 million individuals across the Arab world, including pass-over readers (people who read someone else’s copy), compared to the 64 million Arabs connected to the Web with the prospect of reaching 100 million in a few years Many are content with sourcing their news from the Internet only.

“Even though their audiences are the same, $2 billion is spent on print media in the Middle East, against $100 million on online. This means we’re missing a big chunk of people we’re not communicating with,” he said.

Jean-Charles Decaux, chairman of the executive board and co-CEO of outdoor supplier JC Decaux, explained that within his network (of 1,040,600 advertising panels in 56 countries), the number of digital screens jumped from 2,000 in 2008 to 6,300 in 2010, a figure set to double in the coming months.

Outdoor is “the only remaining mass media and [thanks to new digital technologies] will soon be able to operate on a one-to-one basis,” he said, describing JC Decaux’s latest interactive tool, an iPhone app called U snap, allowing online access to brand information when a consumer takes a picture of one of the brand’s posters.

LEADING THE WAY. FP7 Bahrain was named Agency of the Year In a world where more than 60 percent of the population will be living in cities by 2030, where time for leisure pursuits is expected to be double that of the 1960s, and where public transport and air traffic is expected to grow by 4.9 percent year-on-year until 2028, according to Decaux, outdoor has happy days ahead.

TALK THE TALK, WALK THE WALK. Issues such as “the end of the interruption era” and “the transition to the on-demand era,” whereby for any ad to be effective people will have to enjoy it and want to hear what the brand has to say, were tackled repeatedly.

Calls for brands’ long-term commitment to consumers through digital communication instead of single-campaign based operations, for investment instead of spending, and for content instead of pure advertising, were repeated across the board.

“When competing with other pieces of content, it’s very hard to attract attention. So any kind of branded content [not to be confused with product placement] should be relevant, trustable and valuable, with a premium for innovation and quality,” said Hervé Cuviliez, CEO of digital media company Diwanee, reminding the audience that “the effort must be consistent, and the content must be spreadable.”

With each person on the Internet being potentially connected to 47,472 people (through Facebook and other social media, blogs, and websites), the multiplication rate is now what matters. Arto Joensuu, head of digital at Nokia MEA, concurred, calling for a move away from consumer relationship management to advocacy relationship management.

“Most brands try to operate in their old ways.

Stop replacing time with money. True business impact [today] comes from longevity. Social media is not about one campaign launch or generating a buzz; it’s about an ongoing commitment.

Look beyond one-night stands,” Joensuu said.

“We got lost between James [Walter Thompson] and Mark [Zuckerberg],” said Roy Haddad, chairman and CEO, Middle East and Africa at JWT. “The audience is now creating its own audiences, and we are suddenly managing opinions. The consumer’s desire to share put us in crisis-management mode.”

The winds of change are indeed blowing, and not only in Faraya, because at the end of the day, as Jeremy Ettinghausen, creative director at BBH Labs in London, said, “We are the last generation that cares about the difference between digital and analog.”

Soon, digital will be a meaningless word, as it will have become the norm and our actual way of life. Adapt or die.

Communicate Levant I 27

DECEMBER MARCH 2011 2010 | ADVERTISING | COVER STORY

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MENA CRISTAL AWARDS 2010 / 2011 WINNERS FESTIVAL GRAND CRISTAL CAMPAIGN NAME Accessories Required

CLIENT

AGENCY NAME

Harvey Nichols Dubai

Y&R Dubai

GRAND CRISTALS CATEGORY

CAMPAIGN NAME

CLIENT

AGENCY NAME

Film

Hajj Nadi

Domino’s Pizza

TBWA\RAAD Dubai

Outdoor

All Terrain

Ets. Kettaneh

Impact BBDO Beirut

Radio

The Hijack

Alfa Managed by Orascom

Leo Burnett Beirut

Magazine

Accessories Required

Harvey Nichols Dubai

Y&R Dubai

Print Craft

Musical Creatures

The Fridge

TBWA\RAAD Dubai

Arabic Cristal

Vodafone Brand Campaign

Vodafone Egypt

JWT Cairo

Promo and Direct

Valentine - Make a Move

Exotica

Leo Burnett Beirut

Cyber

Note Pad

Batelco

FP7/BAH

Simsim O-net

Batelco

FP7/BAH

Debate the Game

Batelco

FP7/BAH

Infinity

Batelco

FP7/BAH

Good Call

Batelco

FP7/BAH

Media

Touch of Ads

Hewlett Packard Middle East

OMD

Corporate

Loubnani

Bank Audi

Leo Burnett Beirut

Production Cristal

Zain UNRWA 60 years - It’s a Wonderful Life

Zain Telecom

City Films Production

CAMPAIGN NAME

CLIENT

AGENCY NAME

Food / Drink

Polo

Nestle

JWT Dubai

Media

The Times

SAB Media - The Times Newspaper MEA

JWT Dubai

Food / Drink

Nectar Campaign

Tiba for Trade & Distribution

JWT Cairo

Insurance / Banking / Financial service

Dubai Islamic Bank - Ramadan TVC

Dubai Islamic Bank

Milkshake Media Dubai

Automotive / Automotive product / Motorbike

Hyundai - Dont try to be a wise guy

Ghabbour Auto

TNA "Tarek Nour Advertising"

Automotive / Auto product / Motorbike Special mention for use of media

Mercedes Take Off

Mercedes-Benz

Impact BBDO Dubai

Services

World Cup Campaign

Wataniya Télécom Algérie - Nedjma

FP7/ALG

Services Mention

Formi

Tunisie Telecom

Havas Tunisie

NGO / Great cause / Charity

Madrasati Palestine

Office of Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah

TBWA\RAAD

Public interest

Talkies (1/3)

Batelco

FP7/BAH

Transport / Tourism / Travel

La France au Liban

Promofair

B,

Leisure / Entertainment / Games / Sport

TVC for Asian Football Cup 2011 in Qatar

Local Organizing Committee for the Asian Cup 2011

Impact BBDO Qatar

Retail stores

Hajj Nadi

Domino's Pizza

TBWA\RAAD Dubai

Home

Extra strong

Food and Drug Corporation

Impact BBDO Dubai

Viral Film

Infinity

Batelco

FP7/BAH

Food / Drink

Stolen Heineken

Brasserie Almaza

JWT Beirut

Insurance / Banking / Financial service

Soccer meets art

Visa

TBWA\RAAD Dubai

Automotive / Automotive product / Motorbike

All terrain

Ets Kettaneh

Impact BBDO Beirut

Services

Mouth 2/3

Batelco

FP7/BAH

Beauty / Health

Stopache

Paras Pharma

Y&R Dubai

Ambient

Every Bottle tells a Story

Chateau Ksara

Leo Burnett Beirut

In store poster and display

Sticky posters

Emirates Environmental Group

Wunderman

Food / Drink

The Mixers vs The Jammers

Doritos Collisions, Saudi Snacks Food Limited

OMD & Impact BBDO

Services Special mention

A&H Building Stories

A&H Development

JWT Beirut

General Interest

Note Pad

Batelco

FP7/BAH

Information technology

Simsim O-net

Batelco

FP7/BAH

CRISTALS CATEGORY DAILY PRESS

FILM

OUTDOOR

CYBER

Distribution

Valentine - Make a Move

Exotica

Leo Burnett Beirut

Viral mechanism

Debate the Game

Batelco

FP7/BAH

Viral film

Infinity

Batelco

FP7/BAH

Good call

Batelco

FP7/BAH

28 I Communicate Mobile marketing

DECEMBER MARCH 2011 2010 | ADVERTISING | COVER STORY

T

CATEGORY

CAMPAIGN NAME

CLIENT

AGENCY NAME

Food / Drink

Snickers World Longest Football Match

Mars

MediaVest

Insurance / Banking

Demining Campaign

Blom Bank

OMD Beirut & Impact BBDO

Automotive / Automotive product

Emirates Take Off

Mercedes-Benz

Impact BBDO

Services

Debate the Game

Batelco

FP7/BAH

Great cause

Good call

Batelco

FP7/BAH

Media / Culture / Leisure

Touch of Ads - HP

Hewlett Packard Middle East

OMD

Beauty / Health

Angelstar - WOW with Your Style - Nivea

Beiersdorf Middle East

OMD & Horizon Draftfcb

Youth

The Mixers vs The Jammers

Doritos Collisions, Saudi Snacks Food Limited

OMD & Impact BBDO

Men

Castrol - Cheer with Castrol

Castrol

Mindshare Dubai

Women

Akbar Kitab - Quaker Oats

PepsiCo International

OMD & DDB

Launch campaign

Simsim O-net

Batelco

FP7/BAH

Art Direction

Le Mall - Take her to the game

Acres Holding

JWT Beirut

Illustration

Musical Creatures

The Fridge

TBWA\RAAD Dubai

Photography

Batelco Directory

Batelco

FP7/BAH

Typography

This Terrain is a Joke

Nissan

TBWA\RAAD Dubai

Best Idea

Vodafone Brand Campaign

Vodafone Egypt

JWT Cairo

Advertainment

Valentine - Make a Move

Exotica

Leo Burnett Beirut

Plurimedia

Valentine - Make a Move

Exotica

Leo Burnett Beirut

Food / Drink

Every Bottle tells a Story

Chateau Ksara

Leo Burnett Beirut

Automotive / Automotive products

Mercedes Magnets

Mercedes-Benz

Impact BBDO

Service / Banking / Insurance

Move it as is - Red Logistics

Red Logistics

FP7/RUH

Charity / General interest

Sticky Posters

Emirates Environmental Group

Wunderman

Transport / Tourism / Leisure

Win the Yellow

Les Affichages Pikasso

Leo Burnett Beirut

Information technology / Telecommunication

Debate the Game

Batelco

FP7/BAH

Local Distribution

Valentine - Make a Move

Exotica

Leo Burnett Beirut

Beauty / Health

Angelstar - WOW with Your Style - Nivea

Beiersdorf Middle East

Horizon Draftfcb & OMD

Corporate

Infinity

Batelco

FP7/BAH

CRM

Valentine - Make a Move

Exotica

Leo Burnett Beirut

Web or E-Communication

Infinity

Batelco

FP7/BAH

Film (Internal & External Communication)

Ramadan

du

Leo Burnett Dubai

PR & BTL

Valentine - Make a Move

Exotica

Leo Burnett Beirut

Integrated (tie)

Masters of Windows 7

Microsoft

Wunderman Dubai

Integrated (tie)

Do the Fish

Les Fils de Chafic Halwany

Impact BBDO Beirut

Corporate Identity

ETA Logo Case Study

Egyptian Tourism Authority

JWT Cairo

Great Causes (tie)

Hepp. Valentine

Hepp. Attitude Positive

JWT Beirut

Great Causes (tie)

Demining Campaign

Blom Bank

Impact BBDO Beirut

Financial & economic campaigns

Loubnani

Bank Audi

Leo Burnett Beirut

Food / Drink

H채agen-Dazs

General Mills Middle East & North Africa FZE

Euro RSCG Beirut

Services

Full Life

Papers Worldwide

Y&R Dubai

Media

Batelco Directory

Batelco

FP7/BAH

Media Special mention

Wild Month

National Geographic

Leo Burnett

Home / Clothing / Accessories

Accessories Required

Harvey Nichols Dubai

Y&R Dubai

Beauty / Hygiene / Health

Eat Off The Floor

Henkel

TBWA\RAAD Dubai

Automotive / Motorbike / Transport

Recognise Early

Nissan

TBWA\RAAD Dubai

Services

The Hijack

Alfa Managed by Orascom

Leo Burnett Beirut

NGO / Great Causes / Charity

MTN PR Campaign

MTN Syria

FP7/SYR

Home / Clothing / Accessories Cristal + special mention

See colours on the radio

Scib Paints

Leo Burnett Cairo

Beauty / Hygiene / Health

Thank You Body Odor

Procter & Gamble

Impact BBDO Dubai

Film (tie)

Birell Football Campaign

Al Ahram Beverages

Leo Burnett Cairo

30 I Communicate Film (tie)

Look at the Bottle Half Full

Pepsi

Impact BBDO Cairo

MEDIA

PRINT CRAFT

INTEGRATED

PROMO & DIRECT

CORPORATE

MAGAZINE

RADIO

SPECIAL ARABIC CULTURE

DECEMBER MARCH 2011 2010 | ADVERTISING | COVER STORY

ACCESSORIES REQUIRED Harvey Nichols, Y&R Dubai

OUTDOOR

ALL TERRAIN Ets. Kettaneh, Impact BBDO Beirut

CORPORATE

LOUBNANI Bank Audi, Leo Burnett Beirut

32 I Communicate Levant

FILM

HAJJ NADI, DOMINO’S PIZZA TBWA/Raad Dubai

PRINT CRAFT

MUSICAL CREATURES The Fridge, TBWA/RAAD Dubai

© Corbis

GRAND CRISTAL/MAGAZINE

ADVERTISING | MARCH 2011

RADIO

THE HIJACK Alfa managed by Orascom, Leo Burnett Beirut

PROMO AND DIRECT

CYBER

INFINITY (1 OUT OF 5) Batelco, FP7/BAH

MEDIA

MAKE A MOVE Exotica, Leo Burnett Beirut

TOUCH OF ADS Hewlett Packard Middle East, OMD

PRODUCTION CRISTAL

ARABIC CRISTAL

ZAIN UNRWA 60 YEARS - IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE Zain Telecom, Agency/Production House: City Films Production

VODAFONE BRAND CAMPAIGN Vodafone Egypt, JWT Cairo

Communicate Levant I 33

MARCH 2011 | ADVERTISING

MENA Cristal Awards Some of the highlights from the festival and the prize giving

Tunisia was celebrated throughout the event...

...while Egypt was also making the news

The MENA Cristal Awards gala dinner

French actress Emmanuelle BĂŠart

Jean-Charles Decaux

34 I Communicate Levant

The debate on controversial creativity drew a large crowd

The Leo Burnett team en masse

ADVERTISING | MARCH 2011

The controversial creativity debate panel

The ‘big shots’ table at La Fondue

Good turnout for the first award night

Warming up, Lebanese style

Dinner party at Le Montagnou

General Motors ME’s Fadi Ghosn, GMR’s Siobhan Adams James, Roy Haddad, and Mark

The Impact BBDO and OMD brotherhood

Communicate Levant I 35

© Getty Images

MARCH 2011 | PRODUCTION

Production Guide

Every dollar counts

Filming a blockbuster on a restricted budget need not be a problem. The Chimney Pot’s Henric Larsson shares his tips

H

enric Larsson, CEO of Sweden-based postproduction house The Chimney Pot, shares some of his insights to boost your next project.

This first chapter of a three-fold guide tackles how to get the most out of your budget.

HENRIC LARSSON. CEO of The Chimney Pot

36 I Communicate Levant

DO NOT FIX IT IN POST. Beautiful movies were created before post-production was available.

Producers and directors of photography were more accurate in those days. I am not saying clients nowadays are lazy, but on sets I often hear, “We will fix it in post.” Yes, a lot of things are cheaper to fix in half an hour in Flame [a compositing tool] than on set with a 40-strong team. But some things are time-consuming and can easily be avoided. I am still surprised at how clients miss the most obvious things on set because nobody is focusing on the monitor and seeing things from a post-production angle.

Green screens should cover the whole object, floors should be cleaned between takes, and make-up and costumes must be checked regularly.

Remember that some things – such as motion blur, and actors moving between the camera and the object – are difficult to fix in post-production.

If you do not have a person with post-production experience in your team, get one.

BE PREPARED. Too often, our clients start being specific about what they want in the middle of the post-production process. Take time to create a detailed shooting board and edit an animatic [a pre-production version of the commercial, with drawings and a voice-over] based on it. It will show how long the effect shots will be (they usually end up being shorter than expected). Supplying your post house with a storyboard and 10 mood pictures is not very helpful, either. Try to give

PRODUCTION | MARCH 2011

them two to three reference movies for each effect you need – it just takes a couple of hours on the Web to find. Remember to not only use shots from huge Hollywood movies, since they probably had more time and bigger budgets.

If your supplier gets these reference movies around the time of the pre-production meeting (PPM), you should demand to see some tests from them while you edit. By doing this your post-production process will be more efficient, since you will work toward the same goal and will not lose time on some creative things you do not like anyway.

CHOOSE TWO OUT OF THREE. I tell my clients to choose two out of the following three: low price, fast delivery, and good quality. If you choose fast delivery and good quality, you cannot get it cheap.

If you want a low price and good quality, you cannot get it quickly. Post-production is like a creative factory, and for good results you need time to test things. You can today do the same type of FX work on a PC-based Nuke compositing station that costs $13,500 as you can with a Flame for $204,000. The big difference is speed. If you know exactly what you are supposed to do and what the client wants it to look like – from the smallest color variation to the exact animation – finish it in Nuke.

Normally you don’t know, and your clients expect to choose from the different versions you create. By doing the job on Flame you can, during the course of a day, produce 10 variants of an effect shot, while on Nuke you can maybe only get a half-one. Will the results be better if you have time for more tests and variations? Yes. If you want good quality and cannot afford a Flame, you need to give your post-house time to do a proper job.

DO NOT SHOOT A TVC WITH YOUR CONSUMER CAMERA. I am all for shooting digital and understand that film will have a minimal market share.

Not all digital formats are the same, though. You have professional alternatives (Arri’s Alexa, Red’s Epic, etcetera) that can compete with film in terms of quality. A lot of clients shoot on still digital cameras such as Canon 5D and 7D as well. But don’t think these cameras produce films and stills of the same quality just because they use the same lens.

The movies are stored in an extremely compressed format on memory cards, which leaves little for us to work with in post.

If you are producing a TVC that is not supposed to go through digital grading or compositing, go ahead. Another option is the Red Scarlet, which will soon hit the market at $4,000 apiece and offer better quality than first-generation Red cameras.

GET THE POST-HOUSE INVOLVED EARLY We work on thousands of TVCs a year, and most of the time my artists look at a job only when they start making the edit decision list (EDL) in the presence of clients. It can easily

RIGHT TAKE. Planning and attention to detail are key when shooting a film be a non-creative factory. Instead, if you get the post-production artists involved early and let them read the script, write tech treatments for the shoot based on storyboard, and also show tests on some FX for the PPM, they will care as much about the film as you do.

Artists never get off work; they continue working at home, by visiting Web communities for example. So, if you manage to get them personally involved in your job, they will spend a lot of time away from work thinking about – and working on – it.

FIND A LONG-TERM PARTNER. Do not shop around for the best deal for every single job. You are better off establishing a formal long-term relationship with a good local post house. That way you can benefit from good rates, and at the same time have a partner who you can depend on. If you get a really cool job but not enough budget to execute it, your partner can help you, since you are doing other, better paid projects with them.

OUTSOURCE. As with most manufacturing industries, some places are cheaper than others. Making special effects for films is no exception. If you are open to the idea of your partner outsourcing non-creative and time-consuming tasks to suppliers in India or China, you can save on your budget to get more time for the creative process you are working on locally.

Communicate Levant I 37

© A. Diez Herrero

MARCH 2011 | MEDIA

Commons people

How one non-profit is trying to boost creativity through a rethink of copyright licenses by Rania Habib

T

MOEED AHMAD. New media department manager at Al Jazeera

DONATELLA DELLA RATTA. Creative Commons’ regional manager

38 I Communicate Levant

he little copyright symbol, ©, which comes attached to so many books, films, articles, photos, ads, songs, and poems, has become so prevalent it feels omnipresent – almost every piece of work ever created seems to be guarded by this mark, keeping the creator’s rights under lock and key.

And when things get out of control, copyright lawsuits and disputes make things ugly. With so many rules and regulations protecting content creation and intellectual property, creativity may sometimes be compromised. And while the © era has lasted many lifetimes, a team of people based out of San Francisco (and spreading throughout the world) is working to end it.

Founded in 2001, Creative Commons is a US-based non-profit organization that generates copyright licenses to allow the distribution of copyrighted works, in a bid to build a richer public domain by providing an alternative to the “all rights reserved” model.

Currently headed by Joi Ito, chairman of the board and CEO of Creative Commons, the organization is devoted to expanding the range of creative works available to others to build upon legally and share. While the model has expanded worldwide, it’s only beginning to make

waves in the Arab world – driven in part by Ito’s move to Dubai.

Mahmoud Abu-Wardeh, a volunteer with the Creative Commons UAE chapter (he, along with Stephanie Terroir, make up the UAE team), says Ito’s move signals the importance of the region for the Creative Commons team.

“Having Joi based in Dubai is giving him a lot of access to the region and an understanding of some of the specific issues that the region may have,” says Abu-Wardeh. “The culture that the whole Creative Commons is a part of is an open culture of content sharing, and revolves around Internet and digital content. This part of the world is one of the key areas for digital content, and the Web generally.”

COMMUNITY WORK. Donatella Della Ratta, Creative Commons’ regional manager, says the organization’s structure is based on volunteer work, with chapters set up by volunteers in more than 60 countries.

“In the Arab world, there are chapters in Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt, but there is no official chapter in the UAE,” says Della Ratta, who is employed by Creative Commons HQ. “There’s

© A. Diez Herrero

MEDIA | MARCH 2011

a community starting in the UAE, but there is no official institution that is affiliated to us. The way we work in different countries is by signing memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with institutions such as universities and research centers. It’s like peer cooperation; there is no money involved.”

Della Ratta says the most significant step Creative Commons has taken in the region is an MoU signed with Al Jazeera in 2009, under which the network channel created a footage repository licensed under Creative Commons’ most lenient license, whereby anything can be done with the content on the condition that the source is credited. Moeed Ahmad, new media department manager at Al Jazeera, says the new media department had been lobbying the idea of Creative Commons licensing to management, because it fits “very well with the vision of Al Jazeera, which is about empowering the voiceless.”

“In the summer of 2008, we announced a formal agreement that Al Jazeera would be licensing at least 10 hours of footage every year,” says Ahmad. “So when the Gaza war happened (in December 2009), it made sense to release our footage because the world didn’t have access to the footage due to the restrictions on journalists being able to report from Gaza.”

BEST FOOTAGE FORWARD. Ahmad says Al Jazeera has witnessed interesting uses of its footage from

the repository, most notably by the Wikipedia community, which cannot use licensed images.

Filmmakers, game producers, music video producers, non-profit organizations, and political activists all used Al Jazeera footage.

“We do not require people to tell us what they’re doing with the footage, but we request an e-mail to tell us why they’re using it. It’s quite an interesting mix. Essentially, we’d assumed it would be news companies, but mostly it turned out to be political activist groups: Amnesty, Wikipedia, etcetera,” he says.

Della Ratta says Al Jazeera’s move with Creative Commons pushed others in the region to explore the model. In October, Creative Commons co-organized Digitally Open in Qatar, a conference, in conjunction with the Supreme Council for Information and Communication Technology (ICT Qatar), during which ICT Qatar’s secretary general, Dr. Hessa Al-Jaber, announced that, “All future ICT Qatar projects will be open source, and we aim to use these solutions throughout the government. Open source should be the solution for every government initiative. Being open can even be considered a moral obligation.”

After Qatar, Creative Commons co-founder Lawrence Lessig and Joi Ito officially launched the Creative Commons Lebanon project.

In the UAE, the Creative Commons team set up an Iftar last Ramadan, which was hosted

by Ito. Abu-Wardeh says that while the event attracted content creators from all kinds of in-

dustries in the region, there haven’t been many takers yet.

“I think for a lot of commercial content producers, the biggest barrier has been understanding how they can benefit from Creative Commons licenses commercially,” he says.

As for other challenges, Della Ratta says that the lack of value attributed to intellectual property in the region affects content creation.

“If you don’t have any way to protect the work you have created, you probably won’t create anything,” she says.

“We want to foster a culture of creating content,” she adds. “I see challenges because it is very difficult to explain to people what Creative Commons stands for; copying and sharing is illegal in the Western world, but there’s a more casual attitude toward sharing in the Arab world. We wish to bypass – not to pass through – a strong copyright system, and go directly to the next phase toward a flexible copyright system and a some-rights-reserved culture. I see opportunities, because there isn’t a harsh copyright system.”

As for the future of Creative Commons in the region, Della Ratta says it’s all up to the people.

“With Mahmoud Abu-Wardeh and Stephanie Terroir tending to the UAE, it looks like they are going to develop more activities in the country.

Of course, we wish to open an official chapter, but Creative Commons is mostly a grassroots movement. We don’t decide where to open. It’s more of a bottom-up approach.”

Attribution (cc by) This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered, in terms of what others can do with your works.

based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also be non-commercial in nature.

CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSES

Source: Creativecommons.com

Attribution No Derivatives (cc by-nd) This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.

Attribution Share Alike (cc by-sa) This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under identical terms. This license is often compared to open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use.

Attribution Non-Commercial (cc by-nc) This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike (cc by-nc-sa) This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under identical terms. Others can download and redistribute your work just like the by-nc-nd license, but they can also translate, make remixes, and produce new stories based on your work. All new work

Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives (cc by-nc-nd) This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, allowing redistribution. This license is often called the “free advertising” license because it allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

Communicate Levant I 39

MARCH 2011 | MEDIA

CC and the law

© Jonasⓒⓒ

Will Creative Commons put the legal profession out of work? We ask a lawyer

“In some ways, Creative Commons licensing takes away lawyers’ jobs,” says Mahmoud Abu Wardeh.

“The idea with Creative Commons is that they are ready-made licenses that help you publish your content. There is no formal process.”

FIONA ROBERTSON. Lawyer at The Rights Lawyers

40 I Communicate Levant

We ask Fiona Robertson from The Rights Lawyers for her thoughts: The Creative Commons are phenomenal licensing arrangements that can permit parties to use content without having to go through time-consuming research and negotiations with rights owners.

First, let’s look at the misconceptions. A Creative Commons license does not mean that copyright does not apply to a work. Nothing could be further from the truth; the rights owner is simply listing the terms under which you can license the copyright in the work without having to obtain specific consent.

Creative Commons also does not mean a work is in the public domain. Public domain works are no longer subject to any copyright laws at all. This is usually because the copyright term has expired, so you can use the work in any way you wish.

Under a Creative Commons license, you don’t need to contact the rights owner in order to use their work; you simply comply with the terms that have been set by the rights owner. A very compelling reason for using this material is that it is free.

Many people are going to like this arrangement, and so they should.

For organizations that do not have the financial means to negotiate licenses (or hire a lawyer to check the rights position), Creative Commons is a windfall. If you work at a charity (charities are large users of Creative Commons work), you can use the work and know that you will not face a legal problem. No more license fees, no more negotiations with owners who do not understand your cause.

From a legal perspective, the greatest change is with the fair dealing provisions (those exceptions to copyright that permit use of work without a license from the rights owner). These are complex and sometimes subjective areas of copyright law. If you use work under fair dealing you often have to argue with the rights owner as to whether it really was fair dealing or not.

Take the footage of Martin Luther King Jr. speaking about his dream. This is owned by the King estate, but if you are using the material for the purposes of news, you do not have to clear it. However, his estate can still claim that the use was not valid – for example, if you used it in a news story about nightmares, the estate could legitimately claim that the use should have been licensed. If this footage is available under a Creative Commons license, that uncertainty is removed and you simply comply with the terms that have been set. It is also brilliant for websites, where your work may cross into different countries with different fair dealing rules.

The education sector is another that will benefit from knowing that works can be used without licensing and without an argument further down the line.

Of course, rights holders do not always want work to be used in all ways, so selecting your Creative Commons license is very important. Do you want a commercial organization using your image in an ad for a carbonated beverage? If you put the material out under a simple “Attribution” license, then a third party can do that as long as they give you credit. If the work is under an “Attribution Non-Commercial” license and someone wants to use it in a carbonated beverage ad, they will have to contact the rights holder to obtain a license, in the same way as under normal copyright laws.

It is imperative that you read and understand the terms of the Creative Commons license for the work in question. If the licence is “Attribution Share-Alike,” that means any derivation you make of that work must be supplied to the public on the same terms. If you don’t do this, you are breaching the terms of the Creative Commons license.

And that’s where we see the collapse of the theory that Creative Commons licenses will mean the end of copyright lawyers. If you do anything that involves a contract (even where it is a standard license), you can be sure that at some point there will be claims of a breach, and the first thing everyone will do is fly to the phone and dial their lawyers.

Lawyers simply never go away.

MARKETING | MARCH 2011

The flip side

Media Direction OMD Beirut’s Maya Bou Ajram says many aspects of Lebanese ad spend are a world apart from the GCC

On geography Market budgets differ from brand to brand depending on their nature, product lifecycles, and market priorities. For example, while some brands are established in Saudi Arabia, they might need to be launched in Lebanon and thus require a higher level of investment.

Moreover, while the GCC in general is more homogeneous when it comes to communication, differences between the Levant markets are bigger, and some individual markets may require more attention than others.

The trend toward synchronization is expected to continue in 2011 due to pan-Arab spillover, where regional brands are currently exploring synchronization opportunities between MENA markets from a content/activity timeline perspective, thus ensuring efficiencies and effectiveness between the various markets.

On clients In Lebanon the advertising scene is quite different from the GCC countries, where real estate and telecommunications rule.

Lebanon enjoys a strong FMCG, entertainment/ leisure, and banking presence. Those three sectors make up around 60 percent of the total advertising investments (42 percent FMCG, 11 percent entertainment/leisure, 7 percent banking and finance).

Within FMCGs, Lebanon is a main market for cosmetics, food, and non-alcoholic beverages.

The increase in investments since 2007 isn’t expected to slow down any time soon.

Automotive enjoys a heavy presence as well; it is in fifth place and made up 5 percent of advertising investments in 2010.

Telecom investments died down to become negligible last year, compared to their heavy presence back in 2007 and 2008. This is probably due to the presence of two key government-owned players and a lack of privatization.

The most significant boom in advertising investments is within the real estate sector, where investments almost doubled in 2010 compared to 2009.

On media Media investments in general are on the rise in Lebanon, with TV getting the biggest share (75 percent).

Cinema spend in 2010 was a 10th of what it was in 2008.

While digital is still in its infancy in the Levant region, 2011 should be a promising year, with proper accountability measures being put in place, the introduction of fiber optic lines in the main areas of Beirut, and consumers’ increased adoption of, and interaction with, digital, especially with regards to social media portals.

MAYA BOU AJRAM. Associate director of learning and development at Media Direction OMD Beirut

Communicate Levant I 41

© Getty/Gallo Images

MARCH 2011 | MEDIA

How one scammer snared a small shop Online fraudsters hijack agencies – and their sites – to harvest identities, seed malware, and commit crimes by Brian Steinberg

I

t’s a small agency with a big-sounding name, which is probably why Dallas-based Agency Creative was targeted in a state-of-the-art scam: Fraudsters impersonating an agency, probably to disseminate malicious codes to consumers through advertising.

CEO Mark Wyatt thought something was amiss when he received a call from 24/7 Real Media about a 20-million-impression buy his firm had attempted to place for another Dallas company, and one of the Web’s biggest advertisers: Travelocity. One problem: Travelocity is not a client. Wyatt’s agency handles accounts for a local Hilton, the Dallas Fort Worth YMCA, and area healthcare clients.

But the imposter purporting to work at Agency Creative looked legit, with e-mails, an identical website, and a negotiating style that showed he knew what he was doing.

His pitch, from an e-mail:“If you can provide a $1.50 CPM rate, we will purchase 20M impressions. Let me know if you work with these CPM rates. Our primary goal is to expand advertising reach with new partners, thus we will need 1/24 frequency cap and optimization

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toward unique visitors. Campaign is targeted to US IP addresses. No specific age or demo targeting. I look forward to working with you!”

Choosing Travelocity was another stroke of genius; a big advertiser looking for lots of cheap impressions is an order an ad network such as 24/7 Real Media would be likely to fulfill quickly with the fewest questions.

“My first thought was a little bit of a panic, because I thought we were going to be financially liable,” Wyatt says. “We also contacted the FBI. Within an hour, four other media houses had contacted us.”

THOROUGH JOB. The imposters set up their front on a plausible-sounding Internet domain, agencycreative.net (as opposed to the legitimate site at agencycreative.com). That’s an old trick: When scammers targeted Gawker and The New York Times a little more than a year ago, they used faux e-mail suffixes such as @spark-SMG. com and @Hyundai-inc.com. But a year ago the scammers hadn’t bothered to reproduce the agency’s website on their faux domain; this time

they had. “The individual purchased a domain name, agency-creative.net, hosted that domain, and then through frames technology basically told it to grab our website and place it inside,” Wyatt says. “They hijacked our website.”

Online ads have emerged over the past few years as the weakest link – the easiest way for criminals to harvest identities, spread malware, or even hijack computers into an organized “super cloud” to commit crimes. Scammers will impersonate agencies and advertisers to push orders through more quickly, with less scrutiny, and to mask their identity under the guise of something more legit.

But placing the order with 24/7 Real Media, using fake e-mails, names, and an almost-identical copy of the agency’s website, is also probably what led to the scammer’s undoing.

When 24/7 Real Media’s Midwest sales vicepresident followed up on the order by calling the number on the website, it became clear the contact, Joe Clark, didn’t really exist at the agency, even though he had negotiated via e-mail for the buy.

Wyatt subsequently learned the imposters had attempted to place ads using fake credentials

© Getty/Gallo Images

MEDIA | MARCH 2011

on CareerBuilder, Traffic Marketplace, Synacor and Sustainlane. He quickly changed the code on his agency site to prevent it from being repurposed on a different URL. But it’s quite likely the scammers succeeded on other sites. Since scammers generally pay their advertising bills – sometimes in advance – these scams can go on for some time before they’re discovered. Scammers use a host of tricks that have evolved to stay ahead of the technology, such as geo-targeting, or running the ads on weekends, or only after many impressions, to throw off publishers, networks, and their technology solutions.

BIGGER RISK. At a time when a lot of attention is focused on online tracking, the bigger risk to consumers is that publishers, advertisers, and tech firms aren’t doing enough to protect them from real crimes commit through advertising.

“People are so concerned about cookies and IP, and people tracking them, but what about someone busting in the back door and stealing their stuff?” asks Michael Caruso, CEO of online security firm ClickFacts, which works with News Corp. and several other portals and social networks he can’t disclose due to confidentiality agreements.

ClickFacts estimates that about 3 percent of all Web pages with advertising had some form of malware in the fourth quarter of 2010, with a slightly higher percentage among the top 250 ComScore sites that are more likely to work with multiple networks and vendors – a scenario that can make it difficult to know where the malware came from. Industry estimates put the number much lower, at 0.5 percent.

Those attacked – agencies, publishers, networks, and exchanges – tend to keep it quiet, although Mike Nolet, chief technology officer of Appnexus, says it comes in waves as improvements in scanning technology force scammers to adapt. “It’s a constant cat-and-mouse game,” he says. “We see a new threat and it will come across multiple networks for a month or two, and then quiet down.”

WEAK LINK. In a prior wave, scammers were directly calling on publishers, such as Gawker and The New York Times, posing as agency execs and making buys for ads that installed malware on their visitors’ computers. Now, the proliferation of middlemen gives them many more opportunities to find the weak link in the chain, which is most often human.

“What you’re seeing is a new level of sophistication on the part of the bad guys,” says Bennie Smith, vice-president for platform policy at Yahoo’s Right Media. “They’ve found it’s easier to trick a person than it is to trick an algorithm.”

The ability to look and sound legitimate is the killer app for the scammers, who negotiate like pros and know-how and when to approach a

publisher to get their ads up fast. They no longer have to know any code: There are state-of-theart developer kits available for purchase, and the cost keeps coming down. It might not work long, but it will work long enough to harvest enough identities, say, to make it worthwhile.

“We’re seeing a lot of malware coming through Flash advertisements,” Caruso says.

“Malware writers are making it so Flash and Quicktime automatically upgrade to another version so they can get in. They prepare the users’ computer for the malware.”

Since a malicious ad can activate at any time, it takes constant observation to detect.

Scammers can even switch out a benign fake ad with one loaded with malware. By the time a scam is discovered, the malware has generally done its job and the scammers have moved on.

The key is to catch the ad before insertion, or at least before it activates.

“What’s the nature of this creative? If it contains a script or code you wouldn’t expect, there’s a reason,” Smith says.

Wyatt will probably never know who hijacked his website and why they picked his tiny agency.

In 2002 he picked a name for his agency with pleasant keywords and locked down the .net, .org and .com variations, but he didn’t think to register a hyphenated version. The registrar for the domain is based in China. The reason for the impersonation “might have been based on domain availability,” he concludes.

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MARCH 2011 | DEPARTMENTS

Guest Opinion

That special relationship

Tarek Miknas, CEO of Promoseven Group, says partnerships between agencies and clients are key to both creativity and effectiveness

W

e’re all in the business of business. Whether we’re a multinational giant, a specialist agency, or a small boutique. The recession and the cut in ad spend have amplified this considerably. We have to deliver on client expectations of faster, cheaper, and better. And we need to do this with proof – reliable, transparent, thirdparty evidence that work has made a difference to clients’ bottom lines. Each bit of information must be tracked and monitored by the minute.

We are in the business of providing clients with solutions for their brands; solutions we drive through marketing and communications.

The recent GEMAS Effies Awards (see “Effie one’s a winner,” page 38, Communicate Levant, Dec/Jan 2010) demonstrated, quite effectively, the direction our business is taking. The winning work showed that convergent media messaging centered on a big idea and brand experience leads to results. Whatever the nature of the business problem, be it sales, more subscriptions, or greater frequency, the new world interacts with

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what we do differently – probably because we’re ­doing it in a way that considers consumers at the center of the communication.

But celebrating effectiveness doesn’t stop at the Effies. Cannes also celebrates the success of a campaign at the same time as it judges the originality of an idea and its craft.

We’re part of a global trend. Nike partnered with Crispin Porter & Bogusky to produce a new product. (You link your shoe to an iPod, it tracks your vital stats while running, and you compete with a community of runners. Technology is incorporated into the product and used as a communication platform to join like-minded people.) Efficiencies are high as the product forces you to be part of an owned media site that not only transforms its category, but maximizes its marketing investment and builds a following that engages with the brand of its own will.

A little closer to home, the work we’ve done for Batelco is another case study. The “Debate the Game” World Cup campaign (See Media

Work, page 45, Communicate Levant, Sept. 2010) was a brilliant example of how a brand experience can effectively drive a brand’s positioning.

Batelco is proud of its roots. It’s one thing to place an ad across the country (which we did), and another to actually do things that demonstrate that value. It’s advertising 101: Show, don’t tell.

If you can build on that with even more brand meat, even better.

In this case, the Debate the Game platform was all about people connecting, talking, and expressing their similarities and differences.

That’s exactly what Batelco as a brand does on a larger scale, and in terms of relevance and insight, everyone can be a world-class football critic. We’re all experts and we love to have people around to experience our passion.

Both of those examples involve partnership.

It’s the most important thing in our business.

There should be a level of trust between agency and client. It takes two hands to clap. And it’s our responsibility to earn our clients’ trust. They must know that we are in it for the right reasons.

It’s about what makes sense for their brands and not about the cents we get out of it.

Done right, we’ll both be profitable and both of our brands will thrive. We need to be judged by the value we add rather than by how cost-effective we are. It’s like looking through a telescope: You can either look from one end and see the possibilities, or you can flip it around and see the limits.

For agency people, it never feels good to be considered a “vendor” or “supplier.” We are a part of our clients’ business as much as they are a part of ours. We’re one team with identical goals and dreams for our jointly owned brands.

Advertising people working on brands are extremely proud of the brands they help build every day. We really do care and put all of our passion into every brief, brand-by-brand. And, as with any relationship, the more trust you are given, the more you want to do to earn it.

I look back at my advertising career and think about just how much this business has changed.

Starting as a creative in the late 1990s, the brief was always to go as far out there as possible, within the confines of traditional media. If the client liked the concept, a budget would be found or created.

Today we, as an industry, are living on the opposite side of that pendulum, but if we focus on building our clients’ business through outstanding, integrated thinking, executed exceptionally and efficiently across the right convergent media, the grass might just be greener.

DEPARTMENTS | MARCH 2011

Blogosphere L

ebanon’s blogosphere is probably one of the most vibrant digital scenes in the region. Lebanese bloggers are many, dedicated, and very, very outspoken.

Agencies are now turning to social media and online communities, listening intently to this direct feedback on how they are perceived. Here is what increasingly influential Lebanese bloggers – inside and outside of our borders – have to say about local work and news.

THEY’RE LISTENING, AND WATCHING. This month should teach marketers quite a good lesson on how, when piqued, the bloggers’ community can rally around a peculiar issue and turn it into an actual cause. For the past few weeks, yes, the recent political turmoil in the region has kept the Lebanese blogosphere buzzing. But it is the Benihana “scandal” (248am.com, aka Mark Makhoul, a famous Lebanese blogger in Kuwait, revealed he is being sued for posting a “negative” review on the Japanese restaurant that recently opened there) that has been uniting bloggers in Lebanon and beyond. In other words, how to go after one writer and make sure that many gang up against you. Bad communication strategy 101.

Like many fellow bloggers, Chantal reposted the incriminated post on Benihana, and announced that on February 14 bloggers across the world would all repost the text too in solidarity. “They sued him – will they sue all of us?” she asks. h t t p : / / c h a n t y. o v e r- b l o g. org/article-my-benihanaexperience-defendingbloggers-rights-to-freedomof-expression-67156589.html

Tarek, on Letting Loose, wonders: “What is this? Communist USSR? […] the most absurd part about the whole thing is that Benihana (the mother ship in Japan) still haven’t disowned Benihana Kuwait and said that they had nothing to do with it. […] In all cases, Benihana (Kuwait for now) deserve a slap on the face. Maybe seppuku would be better for their case.” h t t p : / / w w w. w a j a 3 r a s . c o m / 2 0 1 1 / 0 2 / p o w e r- t o bloggers.html

Jad unveils the details of what happened after the review was posted. Allegedly, the GM of Benihana Kuwait threatened the blogger: “We want you to give us your information [...] so our lawyer will [...] be sure that you’re in Kuwait where the jury is 100 % clean and fair.” And then asked if Mark is Lebanese. http://jadaoun.com/ blog/2011/01/31/3591/benihanag o e s - b a n a n a s - m a n a g e rstereotypes-lebanese/

Ivy (yes, the Exotica Make a move campaign blogger) often reviews restaurants.

She says: “Restaurants here have two choices: they can either follow suit and basically commit business suicide or do what others have done, and embrace social media as the new interactive tool, where businesses will now have to listen to feedback. Like it or not.” http://ivysays.com/2011/02/01/ blogger-gets-sued-for-bloggingabout-his-dinner-seriously/

Lebanese Voices also reposts Mark’s review, adding only one sober but quite punchy comment: “Benihana’s trying to pull a Mubarak. If you don’t like bad press, ‘deal’ with it.” http://blkbtrfli.wordpress. com/2011/02/14/ benihana/#comments

Najib, on Blog Baladi, gives a hint on how such a bad communication move can backfire. He offers Benhina new slogans, including: “Benihana, A lawsuit for every visit. We deliver.” http://blogbaladi.com/najib/ humor/benihana-new-slogans/

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MARCH 2011 | DEPARTMENTS

Regional Work

BBAC takes care of you.

Advertising Agency: Adrenalin, Lebanon. Production House: The Talkies. Director: Nicolas Salis. DOP: Luke Palmer.

Fashion is for the taking.

Advertising Agency: Tonnit Design, Dubai. Creative Director: Tonnit Thomas.

Art Director: Tonnit Thomas, Shinil Damodar. Copywriter: Sheetal Rajan.

Illustrator: Farm Works Studios. Photographer: Adam Browninghill.

Account credits: Sujit John, Evelyn Lobo, Naveed Zacharaia.

Financing your dreams.

Advertising Agency: Wellsbox, Egypt.

Creative Director: Ibrahim Barakat.

Art Director: Ibrahim Barakat.

Copywriter: Ahmed Nabil.

These ads (and more) can be found at adsoftheworld.com

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DEPARTMENTS | MARCH 2011

Regional Work

The Axe Effect.

Advertising Agency: Lowe Mena, Dubai. Creative Directors: Mark Lewis, Marwan Saab.

Art Director: Mansoor A. Bhatti. Group Account Director: Tej Desai. Senior Account Manager: Prashob Ravi.

Why should people visit Ski Dubai? Because it’s the biggest, most thrilling indoor snow experience in the GCC: in fact, it’s as close as you can get to the great outdoors while staying indoors.

Client: Ski Dubai. Agency: Expression, Dubai. Creative team: Chris Hubert & Phil Ramage.

These ads (and more) can be found at adsoftheworld.com

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MARCH 2011 | DEPARTMENTS

International Work

The Land Rover S1 Phone. Incredibly tough.

Advertising Agency: Y&R Lima, RKCR/Y&R, London. Regional Executive Creative Director: Guillermo Vega. Head of Art: Christian Sánchez.

Copywriter: Daniel de León.

Imagine taking as much shit as your car. We have everything you need to take good care of your vehicle. Welcome to our petrol stations.

Advertising Agency: Ogilvy & Mather, Stockholm, Sweden. Creative Director: Björn Ståhl.

Art Director: Per-Olov Lundgren. Copywriter: Richard Baynham.

Photographer: Petrus Olsson.

Viagra – See The World Differently.

Executive Creative Director: Dave King. Art Director: Dan Fastnedge. Copywriter: Olivia Wagner. Retoucher: Lightfarm Studios. Photographer: Mat Blamires. Account Director: James Johnston. Account Manager: Amy Ivancic.

These ads (and more) can be found at adsoftheworld.com

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DEPARTMENTS | MARCH 2011

International Work

Play tough. Official partner of England Rugby.

Advertising Agency: RKCR/Y&R, London. Executive Creative Director: Mark Roalfe.

Copywriter: Mike Boles. Art Director: Jerry Hollens. Photographer: Nick Georghiou.

Let your room shine in perfect light with the TRILUX Torso.

Ad Agency: Serviceplan Sales, Hamburg Creative Directors: Alex Schill, Peter Harasim, Harald Gasper.

Art Director: Michael Wilk. Copywriter: Marc Vosshall.

Think of who’s along for the ride. If it affects you, it affects your family.

Advertising Agency: Calder Bateman Communications, Edmonton, Canada.

Creative Director: Kevin Barclay.

Facile. The new high pressure washer from Electrolux. Just pull the trigger and finish with all the mess. Pretty much like Hollywood movies.

Ad Agency: Heads Propaganda, Curitiba, Brazil. Copywriter: Marco Pupo.

Art Director: Ricardo Madeira Peroza. Illustrator: Joe Bennett.

These ads (and more) can be found at adsoftheworld.com

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MARCH 2011 | DEPARTMENTS

Drive By One anonymous blogger critiques Beirut’s billboards. All these examples and more can be found at beirutdriveby.com

SUPERFOOD Peanuts are known as “dietary Viagra.” The power of peanuts.

Snickers really satisfies you.

WINTER WONDERS While it’s winter here, it’s summer in the southern hemisphere, where penguins live.

SLEEPLESS IN BEIRUT If this is a typical night for you, maybe you should consider a sleeping pill or some thicker curtains.

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ADULT CONTENT Wow! What a big package he has!

THE END… …of life as you knew it.

“Speed doesn’t always kill you.”

“Respect Life, Respect Speed Limits.”

THE FINE PRINT A tattoo is done with ink, not pencil.