Nayla Tueni on 90 Years of Annahar
Courageous, confronting and undeniably creative - 2024’s winner of the Dubai Lynx Advertiser of the Year has become a watchword for bravery. The Annahar Media Group, Lebanon’s leading Arabic-language daily newspaper has become one of the boldest creative brands in the world thanks to fearless campaigns which take on the establishment. Created in 1933, the publication began as a four-page paper covering news from across the Arab world; 90 years on, it's still going from strength to strength.
Created by chief editor Gebran Tueni, the paper has been and will remain an informative source, with freethinking views which continue to support its native Lebanon through economic hardships, worldwide pandemics and disastrous events, while also catering to the wider Arabic-speaking populations of the world.
With Annahar’s legacy running through her blood as Gebran Tueni’s great-grandaughter, the media group’s CEO Nayla Tueni says the award is a real vindication for everything the group has been doing to make positive change in Lebanon. “This recognition and the award after several years of working on and winning campaign awards, is important because we have a mission.”
She continues, “Being a media company, we’re not selling something, what we’re trying to do instead is to deliver a message and try to make a change in Lebanon. For the last five years, since 2018, we’ve been working with Impact BBDO to try to change circumstances and amplify the voices of people in the country, and after all these years, receiving this recognition is really important.”
Some of the campaigns Annahar has created with Impact BBDO include printing blank white pages to highlight the political shortcomings of politicians in 2018, as well as the more recent ‘Newspapers Inside the Newspaper’ to bring back papers which had been forcefully terminated and give journalists their voice back again. Through it all, the media group wanted to have a role in platforming the country’s voices and changing things for the better.
This mission, however, is not an easy task.
“Sometimes it’s challenging, we might be putting our lives in danger by facing the government and others as we encourage them to do something,” Nayla explains.
That danger is something that has always loomed as Annahar sought to speak truth to power - indeed Nayla’s father and the grandson of the founder, who was also named Gebran Tueni, was assassinated in a car bomb attack in 2005.
In light of the difficulties they face, the Annahar team is always keen to put a creative twist on events and encourage change in this way. She recalls how the Beirut port explosion was one of these instances. “Remembering the explosion, we worked with fashion designers to use the netting from destroyed buildings to create a dress and redesign the material to make people look at it from a different perspective.
“It always depends on if there’s an event or circumstances which are moments for us to brainstorm and create something from that.”
Key to the success of Annahar’s campaigns is its work with agency Impact BBDO, a relationship that has been in place since 2018. (Indeed, Impact BBDO’s CCO Ali Rez is the recipient of Advertising Person of the Year at Dubai Lynx 2024, thanks in part to the agency’s creative brilliance on Annahar). “The most important thing is to trust the agency you’re working with and, as the media, not to try to change things. When you start to change things and go into each small detail, it doesn’t work, it’s the agency’s job. It’s important to remember that when you’re doing it from the heart, working on a mission and waiting for the results, it’s about seeing the impact and feedback once a campaign is launched.”
Nayla explains that the work Annahar does is not created with the intention of winning awards, but to continue the legacy of the media group, which spans almost a century. “When my great-grandfather founded the newspaper, it was 1933,” she explains. “So, 90 years, it’s a legacy, history, responsibility, besides the mission, and not just for Lebanon but for the whole Arab world. The impact that Annahar used to have and still has is really important.”
The paper was, of course, formed decades before the internet and social media, and so had to build a readership long before content was so easily accessed. “We had Arab presidents waiting for the newspaper to reach Egypt, and this is 50 years ago and 40 years ago. This legacy, and this history, it gives us a certain responsivity towards the reader and viewer.”
She goes on to say, “You have to be responsible when curating the news reporting, the editorial, the content, even what we’re putting on social media for the new content readers. We’re delivering respectful, responsible content and that’s a big challenge.”
With the older generations being acclimated to this tone of voice and content, Nayla is now keen to bring content to the younger generations. “I want to talk to the 10-year-olds, the 15-year-olds, the teenagers and young people who are going to university, and after that when they’re older.” She wants to connect with them on their phones, through push notifications and social media, connecting with generations whose grandparents are familiar with the paper.
Nayla herself has dealt with numerous challenges since taking responsibility for the paper in 2005 when her late father was killed after speaking up about Syria’s occupation of Lebanon. Taking on the responsibility at just 22 years old she recalls, “That was 18 years ago and I was facing the financial crisis of the newspaper worldwide, the drop of ads, facing digital transformations and hearing about convincing the old and new generations to transform and adapt.”
When facing Lebanon’s financial crisis, she explains how the mission and ethos of the paper are what got them through. “When it’s a mission and not a job, when you live it 24 hours a day, even in the darkest moments you can find a small light somewhere. There are signs that we will reach further. And this is my challenge this year, to be more and more visible in the Arab world, speak across generations and create new projects and ideas.”
Looking to work with Impact BBDO to reach further into the Arab world, Nayla is also keen to implement new technologies and trends, such as AI into the process. She explains, “We’re using AI for podcasts, videos, content creations and integrating it more and more with the news teams, trying to push the journalists to understand that they can use it to support their work.”
As Annahar navigates through Lebanon’s uncertainties, pushes to reach a wider audience and keeps up with the latest trends and technologies, its legacy keeps it rooted in responsible, respectful content which translates into beautifully creative, meaningful campaigns to support the mission.
