The balcony is a central part of Lebanese life. People have lunch on them, play backgammon on them, enjoy a morning round of coffee and cigarettes out on them and, of course, hang wet clothes to dry on them. But one shrewd Lebanese company known as Exotica has seized the opportunity to turn this fine institution into a new cause for road accidents. The massive rooftop billboard pictured above–about two stories in height–towers over the country’s main coastal highway in the Jal El Dib suburb of Beirut. The unregulated nature of the ad industry–and every other industry in Lebanon for that matter–makes this colorful strip a crowded, Las Vegas style amalgamation of glitz and kitsch. Exotica is a major nursery although from the looks of the billboard you’d think it was a porn site like Boobs Nu Bay and not a place to buy plants and flowers. Exotica faces plenty of competition from giant nearby billboards selling Calvin Klein, Givenchy and even Penolpe Cruz whose outstretched body is plastered across an entire Jal El Dib apartment building as part of the campaign for her new clothing line at Spanish retailer Mango. But Exotica decided to stand out by going local, alluding to another prominent Lebanese institution: cleavage and breast implants, both of which are on the rise. How this connection will help boost plant sales this spring appears to have been a secondary concern.
