My photographic feat was a source of pride and intrigue to Philippe Hitti. Soon after the Sharp ad experience he called me and Vahe to his office and introduced us to a new client, Edouard Ashkar, a Lebanese immigrant who had just returned from Africa. Ashkar had established a general trading business in fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), emulating the success of Khalil Fattal & Fils (KFF) and Georges Abou Adal, who were the leaders in this line of business locally. The new client briefed us on an upcoming brand of shaving blades called Personna, which he was planning to launch. At the time, the shaving blades market was dominated by two brands, Gillette and Nacet, and most Lebanese men had grown up with. Both brands were distributed by KFF, which was known to retaliate aggressively whenever it felt that its market dominance was being challenged.
All of us at the agency were excited at the prospect of going against the big boys and establishing a third shaving blade in a very brand loyal market. However, after the brainstorming session, each of us went back to his corner pondering how such a challenging objective could be achieved.
This time, too, the briefing and brainstorming happened on a Friday, which allowed me to use the weekend to think freely, putting aside the pressure of AUB classes and the agency’s busy environment. My stage for daydreaming was the same forest where I had done the Sharp shoot, called “Horch Al American”, which housed the cottage where AUB professors spent their summers. As I moved around, kicking stones and pebbles, appreciating the blooming spring flowers, I spotted a porcupine. This instantly caused a bolt of creative lightning to hit me and woke me from my daydreaming. I caught the small animal despite its prickly thorns and ran back home, put it in a shoe box, and looked for my camera. First, I took a shot of the porcupine against a white background. Then I borrowed the metal brush my mother used to clean the kitchen sink and photographed that too, against the same background. A teaser campaign started to take shape in my mind. However, my anxiety was building since I still needed the launch ad.
Weekends in the mountains of Lebanon during the Sixties were spent on family visits. This village tradition did not spare grown-up sons and daughters who accompanied their parents on such family rituals. So, on that Sunday, I accompanied my parents on a visit to a relative in Souk El Gharb, the town closest to Aley. As we settled down in our relative’s sitting room, I instantly noticed a bouquet of ostrich feathers in a vase. It was soon explained to me that these had been brought by the family’s son – who was working in the Congo – on his last visit to the family.
A bolt of creative lightning struck again. As our visit came to an end, I asked our hosts if I could borrow one of their feathers and couldn’t wait to get back home to photograph it. When I got to the agency the next day, the first thing I did was share my campaign idea with the creative director, who immediately took out his pad and scribbled the full campaign down before we got my photos back from the processing laboratory. When we finally got together with the agency’s boss later that week, Vahe was carrying clean and neat layouts that were almost complete.
The idea for the third teaser ad came from the creative director and I had to drive to Beit Mery to shoot a cactus plant in the garden of Rafic Najjar, my elementary school friend.
Philippe Hitti loved the campaign and guided us on how to take it to a higher, street-smart level by kicking off the launch with a press conference, which we hosted at the Lebanese Press Syndicate. Following the client’s presentation of the new blade, Philippe Hitti took to the stage and succeeded in getting the assembled crowd of publishers, editors, journalists, and reporters on Personna’s side, announcing that this would be the first FMCG launch in Lebanon done via print media exclusively.
Publicite Universelle’s strategy worked, as the Personna launch made headlines in most of the business pages. All our ads were given prominence, which made up for their medium size (all ads were designed as 20cm x 3 columns), and most press releases highlighting repeat trade orders, user comments and increased sales were published promptly and in prime positions.
