Veritad.
The Italian translation of truth? Is that it? a blog about truth, is a little be overrated. Even truth is relative; what is correct in the Western world might not be right in the East, etc..
Well, just to relief you all, this is not a blog about truth. It is the blog that tries to find and point out whether the ADs (advertisements) in Lebanon deliver any truthfulness and how would the average consumer (the main target of said Ads) sees them and what does the consumer really think, when seeing, watching, reading or hearing an AD.
The Streets, the radio stations, TV channels, magazines, tabloids etc.. are full of ads, lots of them.
As if the traffic isn’t depressing enough, we have an AD scenery on rooftops, billboards, unipoles, taxis, Big red buses … that makes us even more nervous and jumpy (maybe that’s why we love our car horn so much). There are no more cities you can see if you are in car on any highway in Lebanon, it’s like your taking the Horror ride in a Luna Park, it’s Ads everywhere…
Well, since we cannot just make the ads disappear, or even sleep our way to work, I thought that those advertisers have never been really challenged yet. I mean each one of us, has his own carrier challenge and we are all too eager to prove ourselves to superiors, bosses or colleagues. But not the advertisers!! Those people are arrogant, yes they are! They are getting paid to create a commercial scenery that we have to accept as a general truth, but no one ever dares or bothers to say: Stop, wait a minute this Ad is shallow or silly… even congratulate them for a job well done. It’s absolute darkness and silence, when it comes to AD feedback.
I remember a brochure for a commercial and marketing research company, stating that half of whatever is paid on marketing and publicity is just lost money. Advertising companies (and marketing in general) do not have any feedback from a consumer’s point of view, and even if one criticized their work they would just burst into anger, as if even a positive criticism is discrediting.
Not anymore. We the People seeing and watching and listening to the ADs, we are not going to stay idle, we’ll react. We only hope that our reaction to the ADs shall make them better, or shall make the advertisers more aware that they are now challenged. So aside from that “fixed” Murex D’Or and similar fake ceremonies, where always the same people win, the advertising business has a “connoisseur” a critic from the inside (Yes, I happen to be in the Graphic Design and advertising filed for almost 11 years now) to fairly criticize the ADs.
By Advertisers, I shall mean: any company or individual that identifies himself as a Graphic designer, web designer, illustrator, copywriter, Art Director and/or concept creator, only to name a few.
I shall post a new post for each Ad I deem fit to be criticised whether positively or negatively.
Ads shall be assessed as to: Art work, Concept, Copywriting and Consumer’s feeling about it.
Thumbs will go Up or Down from now on. The advertising business has created its own monster that will haunt it with words, and cynism until, it gets better and Ads start delivering a smart message.
” A Mind only develops after it is appropriately challenged”.
Veritad *
* An Anonymous and fed-up Art Director and Author
veritad 