Blessed, together, generous

Blessed. Together. Generous.

Three words, in English and in their Arabic equivalents, carrying most of the Ramadan copy in this region. A supermarket, a telecoms operator, a car showroom and a chain of pharmacies, all saying the same three things in the same fortnight, set in a serif none of them uses in July.

They are there because they were free.

Nobody has to defend them. No lawyer has a view. No head office asks for evidence. They can be approved before lunch by a group of people who disagree about everything else, which is the only test most seasonal copy is ever put through.

Free to write, free to approve, and the price turns up somewhere else. In this case it is the whole message.

A word that every brand in the market is using in the same month does not belong to any of them. It belongs to the month. On the poster the reader's eye treats it the way it treats the border on a certificate: correct, expected, unread. Thirty days of media, and the only thing established is that the brand knows what month it is, which the reader knew first.

What actually gets heard is smaller and much more specific. That the kitchen takes orders until three. That the box feeds eight rather than six. That the driver will not ring the bell during prayer. That the shop is open in the afternoon, when nothing else is.

Every one of those is generous, and not one of them uses the word.

Generosity in this month is something a business does at ten at night. It is not a word set over a photograph of a table.