Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Ali is new in town

These posters are all over Geneva. And from what I've read online, they're plastered throughout every other major city in Switzerland.
 


While I liked the ad at first for its kitsch, the lack of an address or a website had me thinking it was a waste of Ali's money.

But when I started to see them all over town (I bet there are more Ali Kebap ads in Geneva right now than McDonald's) I came to think it has to be a teaser for something. According to the chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi in Switzerland, I'm right. (Saatchi, by the way, isn't claiming ownership.)

Here are my predictions:
  1. It's an already-established brand. To cover the country with this many posters, there's got to be some significant money behind it.
  2. The posters will remain the same, but the reveal will appear in the negative space just below Ali's navel in the posters and to the left of his fist in the billboards.
  3. It will not be food-related. But if it is, it will be health food.
  4. The reveal will be a "groaner," not an "ah-ha." I'd love to be wrong here. I'm just going by the track records of most other teaser campaigns I've seen.
  5. It will not be for a Kebap restaurant.

2 comments:

Chantal said...

Yep, these things are around the Zurich area too. The art direction is horrible. I hope there's a point to its badness...or perhaps it's just a normal Swiss ad campaign with a sense of humor I can't hope to understand.

Erin E said...

I've seen these all over the place too! My guess is that the UDC is behind it and it is some kind of anti-immigration effort. That could just be a conspiracy theory.