The last couple of weeks Jordanian newspaper were almost ad-less as telecom operators went through some sort of hibernation before summer, but it seems like Umniah and Zain decided to break the silence and engage in an early battle. Zain launched a new offer called “Zain 5″, while Umniah released the “Umniah Impossible 10″ offer.
The hand in Zain ad covers the sentence Talk is Cheap, it was labeled by “Bebalash”, which means “for free”, Umniah removed erased a letter from that word so the whole sentence reads “no way, comparison is impossible”.
Zain 5: You can call 5 special numbers inside Zain network for free, and you can call other Zain subscribers for 5 piasters only, but you have to pay 1 JD every week as subscription fees.
Umniah Impossible 10: You can call 10 Umniah subscribers for free, not 5, you can call other Umniah subscribers for only 1 piasters, not 5, and you have to pay 1 JD as subscription fees once a month, not every week.
I think they are acting silly, every company should has its own strategy, which should be based on studies and market research that help in realizing what your customers need and what is your next step, but what the hell is this?
Interesting use of ambient media in Lebanon for Tobacco Free Initiative, an NGO specialized in fighting against tobacco smoking.
Creative Agency: Horizon FCB, Lebanon
Creative Director: Alain Hochar
Couple of days ago there was an interview with Ghassan Ben Jeddou, head of AlJazeera TV in Lebanon, he said as we are suffering radical Islam in the Arab world, we do suffer a radical secularism, I though, yea he is write, specially after I saw this group on facebook, the title was something around the day to remove the veil “Hijab”.
As a start I was wondering who gave the people behind this group the right to speak on behalf of Muslim women? Yes some of them might be forced to wear Hijab, but many of them do believe.
Now, thousands of people are being killed in Palestine and Iraq, let’s forget about them, let’s forget about poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, occupations, human rights, let’s ignore all other problems in the Arab world, our main enemy is that piece of fabric that covers Muslim women’s heads, this is our main problem. This is how this bunch of morons decided to solve Arab world’s problems.
But is Hijab the real enemy?
I would like to run a small comparison here, in Iran Hijab is a must, while Tunisia totally bans it, which I consider an extreme violence to personal freedom. But does this make Tunisia a better country than Iran? Iran has a nuclear power, economy, political influence in many countries, and I guess a little better example than Tunisia when it comes to democracy, at least the Iranian president is being changed once a while.
Now let’s back to this group, look at the approach they are using, picturing Islam as a terrorist religion, but how does this help you in accomplishing your objectives? Do you think the west will award you a noble prize for labeling your religion with terrorism? Believe me you are making things worse.
Just for the record, Hijab is not only part of Islam, it’s part of the Middle Eastern culture. Look at these pictures of Jews in Yemen, as you can see some of Jewish women cover their heads, even little girls, some don’t, some of them are covered from head to toe.
Those aren’t Muslim women:
How much this wounded region of the world can take? From political influence to military occupations, from cultural invasion to vilification, to stealing souls, fortunes, values, security, hope…etc. and worse than that, “Brain Wash”.
Each news corporation that operates in Arabic serves a certain agenda; both AlJazeera and AlArabiya are owned by Arabs but it’s clear that they have certain objectives to achieve, unfortunately evil objectives.
AlHurra is a pure American propaganda outlet, while AlAlam News is Iranian, and even the Europeans are trying to gain some influence in the Middle East through DW and now BBC. I wonder why French are not so active in this field.
Everybody wants a piece of the Middle Eastern cake!
The BBC, British Broadcasting Corporation, announced the launch of an Arabic channel dedicated to the Middle East next week. Even with this lovely cute face of one of their presenters, BBC is hiding an ugly side, just like everybody does.
Forbes Arabia magazine, the leaders in issuing pointless lists, has issued a new list titled “Da’awa Stars”, the new one-of-a-kind list focuses on the income of religious preachers generated from their institutions and individual activities.
The top preachers/scholars are:
1) Egyptian preacher Amr Khalid tops the ranking with USD 2.5 million net income
2) Kuwaiti preacher Tariq Swidan with USD 1 million
3) Saudi Arabia’s Ayed Al Qurani with USD 533,000
4) Egypt’s Amr Abdul Kafi with USD 373,000
5) Saudi’s Salman Aouda with USD 267,000
But is it ethical to generate money using religion?
I know that those guys are human beings and they need to work to make living, but religion is all about giving without expecting anything in return, especially money, usually the spiritual aspect inspires people to give in their lifetime in order to be rewarded afterwards, in heaven.
The numbers seem to be a little bit big, at least to me, I mean to generate a net profit of 2.5 Million USD in one year is something that raises questions about your credibility and goals.
Preachers usually tend to enlighten people that life is just a temporary stage that leads you to the final salvation, which is heaven, they encourage people to live simple lives not worrying about money or power, cause it’s all going to disappear eventually, if this is case why don’t those preachers donate these money to the poor?
Below is the press release sent out by Orient Planet PR Agency:
Amr Khalid tops Forbes Arabia preachers’ earning list with USD 2.5 million net income
Magazine issues “Da’awa Stars” list of 2007 highest income earners among religious preachers
“Forbes Arabia” magazine has issued a new list entitled “Da’awa Stars”, in which it ranked Islamic religious preachers/scholars with the highest incomes for 2007. According to the list, Egyptian preacher Amr Khalid tops the ranking with USD 2.5 million net income, followed by the Kuwaiti preacher Tariq Swidan with USD 1 million, Saudi Arabia’s Ayed Al Qurani - author of the famous book “Don’t Be Sad” - with USD 533,000, Egypt’s Amr Abdul Kafi -who is a resident of the UAE - with USD 373,000, and Saudi’s Salman Aouda with USD 267,000.
According to the March 2008 issue of the magazine, the source of income of the scholars is mainly from TV production and programs on Arab TV channels, as well as royalty earnings from voice recordings from CD and religious tapes, in addition to religious and literary books by the scholars released in 2007 and the previous years.
The editorial of the “Forbes Arabia” magazine mentions that Da’awa (Call) in religion is based on individual and institutional activity, but it has become a source of income to many preachers, mass media, and printing, publication and technical production companies, and as such it is not deemed different from other business activities. The magazine emphasized on the importance of religious Da’waa “religious call” and Islamic teachings.
The list included statistics for a number of intellectual books and voice recordings by the five preachers. The magazine also published biographies highlighting the turning points in each scholar’s life, while also touching upon their future plans, particularly new editions of books and TV programs under production.
It is worth mentioning that the list of “Da’waa Stars” is the first such list in the Arab World, which tracks incomes of religious preachers generated from their institutions and individual activities. The list is prepared on the basis of a number of criteria, including income from intellectual property rights, which the preacher gets from technical production companies against his voice recordings, as well as income from selling his writings, which he gets from publication and distribution companies. The list also takes into account the income from the remuneration the preacher receives from TV programs which he presents, in addition to the income from other intellectual activities such as training and lectures. The magazine excluded from the list, income which is not related to Da’awa activities, as well as donations and financial endowments which the preacher receives, either from governmental or non governmental institutions.
AlJazeera Sports won the exclusive rights to broadcast the UEFA Champions League in the Arab world, this is my favorite football league, I even like it more than the World Cup, and by this AlJazeera adds another interesting football league to its bouquet that includes the Italian League (Calcio) and the Spanish League (La Lega).
This is a big loss for the ART (Arab Radio & Television), which personally I don’t like, in the past they used to own the rights of almost everything, but now with the existence of a lot of players like Rotana, Showtime, AlJazeera Sports, Orbit, MBC and Melody, they do struggle to exist.
ART was the first to prevent millions in the Arab world from watching the World Cup, which is considered the most important sport event in the world, they forced everyone who wants to watch the world cup to subscribe to their whole channels, how desperate they are.
Not only that, they own the rights for Arab Champions League and majority the local football leagues in the Arab world. So in order to watch your local football league you will have to pay to ART, but again AlJazeera Sports isn’t much better, they are not doing it for free.
Once I was in a meeting with executives from AlJazeera Sports, one of them was so excited when he was telling me how they helped Showtime to beat ART and to win the rights of the English Premiere League, I asked him why not AlJazeera? He said we can’t have our own studios in London because it’s over crowded with buildings, and this will prevent us from offering a comprehensive coverage so we decided to leave it to Showtime. What a cold war, ha?
In addition to football, I like tennis and thank god that my favorite tennis championship “Roland Garros” is free till now and I hope it remains like that this year.
But this raises the question about PPV television vs. Free-to-air television, which is more profitable?
Media needs advertising money in order to survive, once I read a report by Arab Advisors about a drop in TV advertising costs due to the existence of many channels, even it exceeded the 4 Billion USD$ in 2007, according to IPSOS, this number didn’t seem big enough for some channels to remain in the free-to-air side.
AlJazeera Sports is talking about 1 million subscribers in its channels, the subscription fees is something between 70$ - 100$ a year, and with the addition of UEFA Champions League, I’m sure it will jump to 150$ a year, so we are talking about 150 million $ a year, could double in the coming couple of years since AlJazeera Sports will attract more audience.
But how attractive is an audience of 1 million for advertisers compared to the audience of a free-to-air television?
