Diet Club | Members vs. Non-Members

So simple and smart!

Advertising Agency: Impact BBDO Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority | Work in Harmony

Advertising Agency: JWT Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Executive Creative Director: anas sarraj
Copywriter: Safiyyah Abuhulayel
Agency Producer: Gaby Aboudaher
Account Supervisor: Kamel Halawi
Production Company, City: FILMWORKS, Dubai
Producer: Mofeed Abu Al Gebeen
Director: Frank Vroegop
Editor: Federico Costa
Sound Design/Arrangement: BKP
Post Production: DelaPost, Paris Pascal Chinarro

from the Dubai Lynx archive

Boycott Fever hits Arabia once again after Nissan’s new Israeli TVC

What could piss oil countries off? Prices? Production? Consumption? Nissan Tiida? A new offensive piece of advertisement for Nissan Tiida triggers the anger of Gulf countries. The new Israeli TV commercial shows Arabs attacking and cursing the car because of its low fuel consumption.

The Arabian Business reports that officials in Saudi Arabia were talking about boycotting the car because of the TVC, personally I felt it’s offensive and stupid, and didn’t make any sense, I mean even if the car consumes less fuel, is it going to make Gulf countries poor? And it’s not like there is an expiry date on oil, it will be used sooner or later.

It reminded me with an ad for Toyota that was done by Saatchi & Saatchi in Poland.

Craziness Hits Arabian Gulf Airlines Leading to Multi-Billion Dollar Agreements

Gulf-based airline companies went shopping for airplanes with billions and billions of dollars in their pockets, yesterday 4 airline carriers revealed news about agreements that aims at enforcing their fleets with various new aircrafts.

The biggest deal was made by Etihad Airways, the Abu Dhabi-based airline, as they announced earlier yesterday a deal ordering 55 Airbus aircrafts, later the same day Etihad announced that they increased number of aircrafts to 205 brand new Airbus aircrafts, the total value of the deal is 43 billion USD$. This deal is the biggest in the history of commercial aviation.

FlyDubai, the new low-cost airline carrier in Dubai, announced a deal that is considered to be the biggest deal made by a Gulf-based low-cost airline, the value of the deal is 4 billion USD$, the total price of 54 Boeing aircrafts.

Saudi Arabian airlines, which ordered 22 Airbus aircrafts back at the end of 2007, signed a new deal to buy-out 8 Airbus aircrafts. Qatar Airways announced a deal to acquire 4 new Airbus aircrafts, the value of the last two agreements wasn’t revealed yet.

Expectations were talking about a decline in the number of air travelers due to craziness in fuel prices, which will lead to expensive traveling prices, but seems like those airline companies are really optimistic about the future of traveling.

Saudi Telecom STC | DSL Afaq with Modem

Agency: Leo Burnett, Riyadh

What should Coca-Cola do to overcome the confusion between its brand identity and PEPSI?

Once I had an interesting debate with a friend about mixing brands with products they represent, whether if it’s healthy or not, I believe it could be an advantage if the brand knew how to benefit out of it, I mean to go smart and heavy in advertising and PR.

I grew-up in Saudi Arabia, there was a well-known tissues brand called “Kleenex”, all of the sudden the word Kleenex replaced the word tissues, and then we had more adaptation for this word, like kleenexeh for a single tissue, kleenextain for two, and so, in Jordan, the dominating brand is “Fine”, again fine is the alternative for tissues, fineh for one tissue, finetain for two, and so on.

I remember that Jeep from Chrysler tried to benefit of a confusion between Jeep the brand and Jeep the term that people use to call SUVs and 4X4, they used to say: no jeep but Jeep, I don’t think it really worked.

Seems like Coca-Cola is facing the same situation with its competitor, PEPSI, many people believe that this carbonated black drink is PEPSI not cola, it is tattooed in their brains, and I think I’m not an exception most of the time. The other day I saw a Coca-Cola refrigerator full of their new Zero product, so I thought to myself: Oh PEPSI I’m gonna grab one!

I laughed as I remembered an old joke about Coca-Cola trying to go aggressive to make it clear to Jordanians that they are a different brand that produces cola, drink just like PEPSI does, they went to a city and branded everything; buildings, streets, shops even people, lots of giveaways were given, celebrations and carnivals, and of course free Cokes all day long.

But what was the result of that, they interviewed a person on TV and he said that they painted everything red, they gave us cool gifts and they distributed free PEPSI all day long!

I think Coca-Cola needs an intensive educational campaign to get more consumers to use the term Coca-Cola instead of PEPSI whenever they point or think of Coca-Cola.