Yara is the new face for Escada

ATTACHING A CELEBRITY to your product is a page torn out of Marketing 101, and these partnerships are only growing in popularity in the Middle East.

Take Lebanese pop star Yara, for example, who is the new face for Escada’s latest fragrance ‘Especially’. She’s bubbly enough to sell those perfumes and might even create a buzz on social media thanks to her large number of followers, but very little substance goes into these business relationships with everyone involved seemingly waiting for their cheques to clear.

After meeting with her over the weekend in her suite at the Grosvenor House, very little was discovered about her role in the actual creation of the fragrance. Admittedly, she is simply lending her popular image to the brand after being approached with, what we can only assume, was a lucrative offer. Perhaps it would be more beneficial to everyone involved if she simply pretended that her input was given when fragrant notes were being mixed or bottle designs molded. With social media profiles that look less like personal accounts and more like giant billboards of her brand associations, her lack of knowledge comes as no surprise.

But some may think Yara is an odd choice to even attract publicity for Escada. She’s been living under the entertainment radar for quite a few years, having released her last album in 2009. The last time she made headlines was in 2012 after she was detained in Algeria for refusing to put out a cigarette during Ramadan at the request of her driver, who was fasting. But apparently, all publicity is good publicity.

The 30-year-old singer is still a popular figure in music thanks to her husky and soulful voice. She’s working on her fourth album, she tells us, which will incorporate Lebanese and Egyptian dialects into the music.

Yara, sweet if somewhat lacking in energy, will continue leaning on her style savvy image to rake in the big endorsement bucks. Whether she’s the right choice for the job will be determined by how well shoppers differentiate between the product and the pretty face selling it.