On any given day in Beirut, you’ll find them: small, hand-cut flyers taped to stairwells and street poles. A phone number. A job title. Most people pass by. Rain blurs the ink. Tape loosens. Another day goes by, unseen.
Since 2019, Lebanon has endured one of the world’s sharpest economic collapses, with unemployment near 45% and its currency losing more than 98% of its value.
In an attempt to reach new customers, independent workers turned into those paper flyers, which are a lifeline; but are far too easy to miss.
That’s the tension The Unseen Ads initiative set out to meet, not with speeches, but with scale and amplification.
The problem wasn’t the message independent workers were sharing. It was the medium. A hand-cut flyer taped to a stairwell gets rained on, torn down, or buried in visual noise.
On August 6, 2025, AGA & Pikasso launched a campaign that does exactly that: The Unseen Ads initiative.
We took real flyers from Beirut’s streets, kept the workers’ original flyer content, redesigned them for visibility, and placed them on neighborhood billboards so the call for work could finally meet the people it was meant for.
The creative system was built for clarity at street speed. The media logic is hyperlocal.
The effect is immediate; numbers that once hid on peeling paper now hold the eye at intersection height.
“The Unseen Ads doesn’t change people’s stories—it amplifies them,” says Dany Azzi, Executive Creative Director, AGA. “When design gives dignity and media gives a voice, everyday work gets the stage it deserves.”
This is a pilot phase in Greater Beirut, with phased expansion planned. Our purpose is simple: elevate the visibility of independent workers at a time when visibility can mean livelihood.
