Who Aïshti
Agency H&C Leo Burnett
What A striking geo-centric advertising campaign that focuses less on products
Why Hopefully the herald of a more hopeful era age, the new Aïshti campaign has made a mark on a city drowning in adverts
There is often a profound power in an image. As they say, a picture counts for a thousand words. That said, there is often a striking lack of originality and flair in Middle Eastern marketing. The adverts are often dated, staid affairs and so it comes as a breath of fresh air when a regional company comes up with something local yet truly polished. Enter H&C Leo Burnett.
Beirut features large in the new Fall / Winter collection from Aïshti, the city forms the background of every shot. Glamorous clothing, and beautiful people lie in the forefront, but it’s the dramatic cityscapes that steal the show. Beirut’s corniche, the classic steps of the Roman baths of Downtown and some Parisian-inspired wrought iron balustrades in Gemmayzeh all bring the chic posing a little closer to home. “Beirut was this year’s most compelling destinations for tourism for the year 2009 (based on the New York Times), Beirut is a fashion destination, Beirut is a lifestyle, and Aïshti is synonymous with Beirut making it the best opportunity to set Beirut as the place to be, the place we aspire to, and the place that sets the trend,” says Reem Kotob, senior art director at H&C Leo Burnett.
Sites that are familiar to Arabs throughout the region combine with the latest fashion to make the Leo Burnett campaign bring a smile to your face. There’s something wonderful about seeing an unabashed pride in your home. The poses and the clothing aren’t the centerpiece of the images, “Rather than covering new grounds we used the existing language of fashion, its advertising and its story telling, and made Beirut the city that influenced those scenes and those stories, making fashion stories everyday Beirut stories,” says Natasha Massri, art director.
When I asked the team about the challenges they face in having to generate new ideas, Elie Ghossein, communication supervisor chimed in, “It’s what we do on every project, everyday. We don’t focus on the difficulty we enjoy the coming up with something fresh.” Leo Burnett are one of the region’s most creative agencies, winning the first Cannes Lion awarded to a Middle Eastern firm earlier this year and consistently winning Grand Prixs at the Dubai Lynx Advertising Awards.
A change in the paradigm? Hopefully. It’s time to embrace creativity, the Aïshti campaign is something different, it stands out from the clichéd attempts to grab our attention and is closer to art than a ad campaign. We’re a creative region, let’s start to show it.
