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Who doesnt remember the hilarious Camlin permanent marker ads that brought a dead man alive, or the royal win of Nataraj in a race of pencils, or Shah Rukh Khan taking a waterproof test to be identified from his clone, or he turning everything from a school student to a corporate employee for Linc Pens! These are only a few of the many iconic ads that led to the setting up of bases for several big stationery brands in India. They used television as a big medium to reach out to their prospective consumers and spent good bucks on ATL marketing. Several, especially the ones in the writing instruments category, also roped in celebrity endorsers to raise their share of awareness. However, as the digital revolution picked up and consumer trends shifted, there was a gradual decline in brands affinity to big ambassadors, and eventually in television as an advertising medium. And then the pandemic, finally, truly made the industry a digital-first marketing entity. exchange4media traces the big shift of stationery brands in India from television to digital.

From Liberalisation to Digitalisation

As per a TAM AdEx data released in 2011, writing instruments were the fifth largest category of advertising on television, taking up 3% of overall ad volumes in 2001. The brands were actively visible on the screens and were trying to build a market for themselves. Soon after, from 2007-08 onwards, brands like Reynolds and Cello started introducing big brand ambassadors to further their share of awareness.

Speaking about the trend, FoxyMoron (Zoo Media) National Head-Client Partnerships and Business Head, North Prachi Bali says, This phase directly correlates with the advent of the corporate world in India. The boom of the private sector, the socio-economic makeup of the country, Gen X achieving career milestones, Gen Y (millennials) as students having ambitious dreams - all of these were geared towards celebrating professional success. And a huge marker of this success was writing instruments. Having these big brand ambassadors pretty much built this correlation in the minds of the consumers.

Adds Wunderman Thompson Kolkata SVP & Managing Partner Vijay Jacob, In yesteryears, the stationery category was highly commoditized with local players offering low-cost but inferior offerings. At that point, getting people to know about and upgrade to brands in a mass popular category like stationery necessitated endorsement by popular celebrities and actors who had mass appeal. It helped people get interested in brands and prompted them to try those even if it required paying a slight premium.

However, with digitalisation, the trend started to subside. While big brand ambassadors started leaving the scene around 2011, the next few years saw the brands adopting digital slowly, which really became prominent in the pandemic era. As per TAM AdEx data, the ad volume for the stationery category in TV saw a drop of 23% in Jan-Jun 2021 compared to the same quarter in 2019.

During the same period, ad insertions by the stationery category in digital medium saw a sharp rise of 19 times.

Havas Media India HeadDigital Rohan Chincholi explains, What was once a classic & linear model of AIDA has today become a complex fishbone design, where a user is exposed to multiple touch-points that aid him in his buying journey. We must admit that for all categories, the audience is in a state of active evaluation always comparing with multiple other brands. If your brand is not visible someone else will take the share.

Grapes Digital founder & CEO Himanshu Arya further notes, A traditional medium like TV is an expensive way to market your product. Brands know that students are spending most of their time on digital channels. Hence, spending their market budget on digital media gives them the edge.

From Building Brands to Building Salience

Another thing that has shifted in stationery brands marketing strategy is their focus from building brand awareness to building brand salience. And nothing could be better than digital marketing for that.

As Linc Pen and Plastics Ltd Managing Director Deepak Jalan shares, Pen is a low-involvement category. Mostly students have been our prime TG and they show brand loyalty around exams. So between 2008 and 11, when we were working with big brand ambassadors like Shah Rukh Khan and Katrina Kaif, our focus was on building brand awareness and creating a loyal prodigy of customers. And while it did not have much of an impact on our sales then, it surely did increase brand awareness. Today, brand awareness is not an issue for us. We just want to be available and visible to our customers at all possible touch-points.

He adds that apart from the usual presence at retail outlets, they are aggressively working on a solid digital strategy and have started increasing their presence on e-commerce channels too.

Reynolds General Manager India & South Asia Rajat Vohra, in the same vein, highlights, I would say that our share of awareness had gone up by 20 points after the continuous running of ads featuring Sachin Tendulkar for three months back then. But, interestingly, it did not go down even after we stopped running those big celeb ads. It remained constant. Right now, it makes more sense to be present on digital as our core TG of students is there. Additionally, from hereon, our focus is more on building saliency and awareness for different products that we have. While we are well known for writing instruments, there are many other products in the art space, for example, that we want to promote and influencer engagement is really helping us push that agenda.

Now the brands are relying on traditional advertising on television only for new product launches or festive occasions, as Bali shares, Traditional advertising channels arent being used much anymore unless it is related to gifting/ festive occasions. Digital is being leveraged to promote the customisation of the instruments themselves. Also, a lot of luxury/premium brands are using digital mediums to capture newer audience bases. This has also led to a sense of polarisation within consumers where stationery has now become a passion to pursue.

Jacob adds, Brands are generally giving the primary launch communication or product information on traditional media while sharing the social media page links for continued brand engagement. Traditional media is helping inform and build recall while modern channels are helping in building brand familiarity and connection.

The Rise of E-commerce

Another factor that is contributing to this shifting of marketing rupees to digital mediums is the rise of e-commerce platforms.

Chincholi agrees, Consumers have evolved; owning stationery has become an extension of ones personality - from brand choice to functional relevance. To fuel these choices, e-commerce platforms have helped in the discovery of newer brands & ensured availability in the shortest time from order to delivery. The legacy brands continue to use social platforms with a lot of meaningful content and also use online videos very effectively. Given that 26.31% of Indias population is in the age group of 0-14 years currently, India has approximately 250 mn school-going kids (source: ibef.org) which shows a mammoth potential from the student base alone.

BIC Cello India Marketing Director Tanveer Khan highlighted, "The pandemic has significantly changed the consumer behaviour across the world. Certain industries have witnessed a change more than others education and e-commerce fall into that category. We have been working towards building a robust e-commerce portfolio by introducing new products across segments. Building a strong omnichannel presence as part of BIC Cellos plan even before the pandemic. We always had a plan of making our products available in alternate channels of modern trade, e-commerce, institutions and exports. 2020 only accelerated our journey in alternate channels particularly e-commerce and digital. BIC Cello grew more than 50% in terms of a sell-out on e-commerce platforms and we have a double-digit business contribution from the alternate channels. 2020 brought new trends and accelerated others. The most notable ones include the adoption of digital and e-commerce channels and the personalization of communication to occasions."

The category, therefore, is poised for stronger growth on digital platforms in the coming days. Right from adopting new technologies in products to expanding their presence on social media, several things are going to write the next chapter in its history. It will surely be interesting to see how it pans from here!

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The giant leap of stationery brands from television to digital marketing - Exchange4Media

It is hard for marketers to look beyond the marketing mix on most days, but when it is the Premier League in question, the mix of great football, intense competition and the stature of players is a strong distraction. Considering the growing popularity in India of this most-followed football league in the world, we decided to bring to its viewers a Premier League special feature. Through this seven-part series where we will reach out to PL fans within the marketing community and official fanclubs spread across the country, we hope to identify why the nine months of great footballing action can be a wonderful platform for building brands, and why the passionate followers of the PL cant wait to see the power-packed league kicking off on August 14.

In this edition, we spoke to one self-confessed PL fan, Nitin Khanna, Senior Director, Marketing, ACKOwho has been rooting for Liverpool for well over a decade. Khanna says, I normally get my jersey on for every Liverpool match that I'm watching. I get both the jerseys from the season--the home jersey and the away jersey, and make sure that I get the feeling of watching the match in the stadium with the other fans.

Talking about what sets the Premier League apart from most other leagues, he says that in the others there are just two or three teams that are top-notch. In LaLiga, you have Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid but there is a big gulf in terms of quality between them and the others which makes viewing really attractive for only select matches, they are largely one-sided so you lose interest as a football fan. That is definitely not the case with the Premier League. Over the years there's a really nice competitive set of six eight teams which makes every match well contested and thus a delight to watch. The last season is a testament to that fact. Till about a week or two before the Premier League ended, you had no idea who was going to be fifth in the league and who was going to be second. There was a difference of just a couple of points between the two spots.

The onset of Premier League is almost like a declaration of war for Khannas circle of friends each of who has his loyalties etched on a stone for a particular club, be it Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool etc, starting from WhatsApp battle of wits, to memes on social media to sharing articles which rub the other teams followers the wrong way and finally celebrating the defeat of a rival club ostentatiously, Premier League in those nine months is always a buzzing topic for them. Khanna elaborates, In the past 8-10 years, each club has had a period where they've not been doing so well. So, we've all had our chances for really making sure that we are giving the supporters of those teams a hard time. Arsenal, for example, has had a rough patch in the past six years and we have all ensured that my friend who is a true blue Arsenal supporter definitely realizes that every step of the way. We have not missed even one opportunity to mock her and tell her just how badly the club is performing.

Talking about pre-Covid times he says, My friends and I would organize a house party to watch the game together or hit a sports bar especially when Liverpool was locking horns with Manchester United, those were big draws. In fact, a permutation or combination of matches between Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea was always a ready excuse to catch up and watch the match together.

So high is the Premier League mania for Khanna that he has conditioned his five-year-old son to watch the Premier League with him. Khanna jokes, Right from the time when he was three years old, I've made sure that he sits beside me and watches the matches. I've tried my best to coax him into being a Liverpool supporter as well. But his loyalties seem a bit divided at the moment because my brother is a Manchester United fan. He's doing his best as well, to make sure that the youngest male member in the family is pulled to the Manchester United side. But me being the father, has had the strongest influence so far and I see our little one tilting towards Liverpool now.

He also has quite a collection of the Liverpool merchandise, he emotionally blackmails his friends into getting something for him every time they are visiting the UK, be it scarves, or a giant poster of Anfield stadium in Liverpool which is pasted right next to his bed and one he happily wakes up to every morning.

The passion associated with the game is what according to him makes the Premier League such a great marketing property. The banter on PL was alive even during the Covid times, that is why I feel it is way ahead of other football leagues. From an advertising point of view, we get a sharp, affluent male audience watching the Premier League. There is a certain age and income demographic that's more clued in with the Premier League. It is not like IPL, which has a mass following. The Premier League is still in a niche of its own. So, if a product is aimed at that target audience then it's probably one of the highest impact properties to advertise your brand on. Hence you see a lot of auto-related companies, like car manufacturers or bike manufacturers advertising on it, says Khanna.

Premier League is most certainly growing its fanbase and viewership in India in addition to being one of the richest sporting leagues in the world. Signing off Khanna says his dream is to be able to visit the Anfield stadium one day. I want to walk through the players tunnel, watch a game and be able to sing the anthem, You Never Walk Alone with all the fans in the stadium- that's a bucket list item, the Liverpool fan adds proudly.

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It was just about a year ago when Kartik Sharma took on the Group CEO mandate at Omnicom Media Group (OMG), at a time when the economy and the industry was reeling from the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the timing was challenging and the experience extraordinary, Sharma tells us that the time he had between his previous role at Wavemaker and the new one allowed him to observe changes in the industry before being thrown right into the action. I realised then, that we are amidst a sea of both challenges and opportunities, he says, adding that it wasnt easy to adapt to a remote working arrangement immediately. Sharma takes us through the events of the past year at OMG, which also saw the agency bag business worth Rs 400 crore.

You took on the CEO mandate during a year that turned out to be truly extraordinary and challenging. Tell us a bit about the transition into the CEO role at such a tumultuous time.

It has been an extraordinary year indeed. While I did have some time between my previous role and the new one, most of it was spent observing the changes in the industry and thinking about how agencies need to evolve. I realised then, that we are amidst a sea of both challenges and opportunities.

Ill admit that its not easy to sink into the remote working scenario immediately. Weve all inevitably become used to working in a certain way over time - meeting people and clients, being in an office space, making decisions together. Everyone has had to evolve rapidly, adapt to the newness, and actively learn new ways of working remotely. Most important, it was a lesson in managing teams remotely. One of the best things, however, has been the team, that welcomed me and been extremely supportive and energised about the vision for the future across OMG.

Its true that now, meetings are shorter but its also true that we continue to collaborate and get things going. The pandemic has surely turned us into more nimble and agile beings - continuously learning to be more innovative, curiosity-driven and solution-oriented. I do miss the quick, spontaneous brainstorming sessions and, am sure all of us do. But greater good precedes and our teams, their well-being and the health of the organisation are paramount right now. With that in context, we are all learning to communicate differently, with a lot more transparency in the way we operate.

Almost a year into this role, what have some of the big moments been for you at OMG? What were some of the big takeaways and learnings for you in this first year?

Even through the pandemic, we have been actively pitching to clients to enable business growth, and have started seeing efforts bear fruit in the last quarter of the year, and that was definitely a big moment. Multitasking was a big challenge through it all, but the team did a fabulous job! We also launched Transact, our e-commerce unit, seizing a new opportunity to innovate rather than waiting for COVID-19 to be completely at bay. Additionally, we brought on board a set of diverse and versatile talent. Some top-notch new leaders have joined the group - something that has truly worked in favour of team morale and strength, alongside business output.

We have also stepped up our efforts to be innovative in learning and development initiatives through regular podcasts. Weve ensured that data and insights have led to better decisions whether its for our people or our clients. Regular and consistent communication was important and so we made sure we organised regular town halls within OMG, OMD and PHD. Weve been actively emphasising the need for resilience, offering support through mini-sessions, regular check-ins, offering breaks and other measures. One learning that has stuck to me personally, is one that I took from the team. It was the sheer ability to view circumstances through a positive lens. We saw getting things done collaboratively, leading to building both stellar teams and organisational resilience.

How challenging has it been to pitch and win new businesses in this past year? What are some of the key account wins youve had so far?

The major challenge has definitely been to communicate everything through the screen. Considering that attention spans continue to diminish, its important to practice and embrace the art of crisp storytelling. As for new wins, across agencies, we have brought home some amazing brands like Philips, AU Bank, Cuemath, Tread One, Country Delight, The Pink Foundry (ConfiraLab), Parrys, Bel Group and Lead School, cumulatively adding to over Rs 400 crore to business. This to me is an indication of the trust our clients have placed in OMG and we are confident about building for the future.

After the initial setback from the pandemic last year, how tough was it to get billings and business back to normal? How would you evaluate the Groups performance from last year in terms of growth and revenue?

Last year, after the pandemic began, AdEx declined for the industry in general, and so a dip in billings was understandable. However, we saw an exceptional surge in digital, e-commerce, and trading. So, Id say specific verticals have definitely seen growth and continue to do so.

OMG has consistently seen a good representation of women at the leadership level. What is your vision for the organisation when it comes to ensuring inclusivity and equal opportunities for all?

OMG India is probably the only agency in the country where women make up 80% of the C-suite / leadership team. We're merit-driven and so its possible that what the world considers a bias, we think of as a competency. If you are competent, you make the cut. Having been in the industry for 25 years I have witnessed some great strides when it comes to inclusion, across the board. The media industry has definitely been quite progressive in this realm. I am proud of the leadership team across OMG.

What are the differentiators for both PHD and OMD as well as Omnicom Media Group in a very competitive industry? What are the capabilities you are building in this volatile pandemic scenario?

OMG embodies the principle of being limitless to strive for bigger, better and bolder accomplishments every day. The cohesiveness of the group lies in creating a resilient workforce across agencies. All our agencies are defined by the same ethos in their niche. OMD and PHD, as world-class agencies, are unified under our commitment to remain agile and futuristic. OMD India is the leader in benchmarking deep data-driven solutions, resulting in better and faster decisions for clients. This is essentially achieved because OMD focuses on being adaptable, collaborative and open to learning every step of the way. PHD Media is a challenger brand / a disruptor, an idea hub that is constantly going above and beyond today to focus on constant creative disruptions for tomorrow. All of this, by challenging the status quo and making the leap, with smart, strategic, innovative business outcomes.

Being limitless in our efforts to deal with any challenges has been the key to creating a resilient, empathetic and collaborative workforce. We have adjusted ourselves to new ways of working and new methods of interacting with our clients. And through it all, we have been ensuring that our people have the time and opportunity to keep their physical and mental energies up. We are largely focussing on enabling seamless systems, processes and practices by leveraging digital transitions for agile decision making. Improving trading, financial policies and practices, HR processes, as well as opening and exploring new lines of business are at the crux of our long-term strategy. OMG India aims to become not just a market leader in precision marketing with its tool Omni, but also the frontrunner in being a responsible corporate citizen.

Going forward, what will your key focus areas be? What is the organisations new vision given the current landscape?

The key focus is definitely to enhance offerings through our people-based precision marketing tool and insights platform Omni. It is a forward-looking platform that can manoeuvre in a cookie-less environment, having ingested over 500 million device IDs, all from India. It is divided into five utilities insight, planning, activation, optimisation and workflow. Providing data clean rooms with strict privacy controls in alignment with Ad Data Hub, the platform has evolved a great deal since inception. At the core of Omni is our robust people-based identity graph, which monitors consumer behaviours in real-time to reveal how people connect, engage and transact with brands. It connects people, data assets, and analytics into a common framework, providing our teams with deep insights for making better decisions, faster, and outcomes that drive business results. We want to interlink everything to optimised business metrics.Our vision is to scale more capabilities in content and e-commerce, in a holistic manner for sure, but also in order to meet the needs of the data-rich digitally-powered world we live in, today.

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Across agencies, we have cumulatively added over Rs 400 crore to business: Kartik Sharma - Exchange4Media

Nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran adjourned last month and could resume after Iranian President-elect Ebrahim Raisi takes office in August. But Irans behavior during the interregnum shows what it thinks about President Bidens arms-control overtures.

Federal prosecutors said last week that an Iranian intelligence network planned to kidnap a U.S. citizen in New York and bring her to Iran. A dual U.S.-Iranian national, Masih Alinejad has reported extensively on human-rights abuses by the Islamic Republic. The journalist has built a large following on social networks while pushing for a tougher American approach to Tehran.

The prosecutors, who indicted four Iranian nationals, said Iranian intelligence has targeted others in Canada, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Last year Tehran executed Ruhollah Zam, a France-based Iranian exile abducted while traveling in Iraq. Europe has previously imposed sanctions on Iran for planning terrorist attacks and murders on the Continent.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that an Iranian commander has encouraged Iran-backed militias to step up attacks on U.S. targets in Iraq and Syria. Shiite militias have attacked U.S. positions in Iraq at least 26 times since President Biden took office, estimates Behnam Ben Taleblu of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Biden ordered retaliatory airstrikes on the armed groups twice this year. But two American service members were wounded this month during a rocket barrage after the last pinprick U.S. retaliation.

Irans violations of the 2015 nuclear deal also continue. Lame duck President Hassan Rouhani says the country can enrich uranium to weapons-grade purity, or about 90%. So far it has stopped at 60%, but thats well above the 3.67% allowed under the deal. The government is stockpiling other illicit material and ignoring its inspection obligations to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Even Russian diplomat Mikhail Ulyanovadmitted, Iran seems to be going too far.

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Irans Answer to Bidens Diplomacy - The Wall Street Journal

Early this month, one Iranian and one Israeli tweet created a storm in the already troubled waters of the Mediterranean Sea.

On June 26,the Iranian Embassyin Lebanon wrote a vaguely worded tweet with a picture of an Iranian ship and said that Iran did not need Americas approval to send fuel to Lebanon. The tweet implied the ship carried fuel and was headed to Lebanon. Fearful of U.S. sanctions, Lebanons energy ministry quickly denied ever requesting to import Iranian fuel, but not before speculation was rife that an Iranian tanker was on its way to the port of Beirut.

Early this month, one Iranian and one Israeli tweet created a storm in the already troubled waters of the Mediterranean Sea.

On June 26,the Iranian Embassyin Lebanon wrote a vaguely worded tweet with a picture of an Iranian ship and said that Iran did not need Americas approval to send fuel to Lebanon. The tweet implied the ship carried fuel and was headed to Lebanon. Fearful of U.S. sanctions, Lebanons energy ministry quickly denied ever requesting to import Iranian fuel, but not before speculation was rife that an Iranian tanker was on its way to the port of Beirut.

Then, on July 6, IntelliNews, a blog on Israeli defense and intelligence affairs,tweetedthat Iran had dispatched Arman 114, an Iranian-flagged ship carrying Iranian crude, to Lebanon. Hezbollah is conducting a logistical operation to smuggle Iranian fuel into Lebanon, the tweet read. A few days earlier, Hezbollahs chief Hassan Nasrallah had pledged to import fuel from its patron Iran to emerge as the savior of a country reeling under a devastating shortage of the essential commodity.

Together, the tweets seemed to suggest the expansion of a war between Israel and Iran that had until now mostly taken place in the shadows. For years, Iran and Israel have engaged in tit-for-tat attacks on each others ships in, and beyond, the Mediterranean. The conflict has mostly concentrated on Iranian oil tankers bound for oil-starved Syria. Now it seems the fight is spreading to involve a Lebanon that increasingly seems on the verge of economic collapse.

Arman 114 finally anchored at the Baniyas port in Syria on June 13. TankerTrackers, an online service that tracks and reports shipments of crude oil, said that it had been tracking Arman 114 along with two other ships carrying Iranian crude and confirmed Baniyas, not Beirut, turned out to be their final destination.Latest satellite imagery confirms that all three Iranian tankers went to Baniyas, Syria as planned,TankerTrackers tweeted. But the Iranian Embassys tweet seemed to be mere posturing. It appears the embassy used a stock photo of a ship and in reality there was none en route to Lebanon.

Immediate worries of an escalation between Israel and Iran were warded off but Israels strategy to target Iranian oil tankers is still very much active. Irans determination to respond in kind and attack Israels commercial vessels or those of Americas allies in the Gulf, has not weakened either.

Arman 114s smooth journey illustrated the ease with which Iran has been defying U.S. sanctions. It also displayed that despite U.S. and Israeli awareness of the movement of specific Iranian oil tankers violating sanctions, neither country can stop all such transactions. The United States is constrained by international law and, like Israel, must fear Iranian retaliation. Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz, a 21-mile-wide strategic waterway through which 20 percent of the global oil supply passes.

Farzin Nadimi, an associate fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and an expert in the security and defense affairs of Iran and the Persian Gulf region, said technically a ship in international waters cannot be stopped unless it violates international maritime law or unless the flag state allows it. If it is known to carry contraband such as drugs, or weapons of mass destruction, there are U.S. laws that allow stopping and searching in the high seas, or under some circumstances such action can even be justified under universal jurisdiction, Nadimi said. The U.S. Congress can also pass a law, or the president may issue an executive order sanctioning individual tankers and ask other countries to stop them as soon as they enter their territorial waters, or face sanctions themselves.

Nadimi added that Iran has one of the largest tanker fleets and a lot of experience in how to conceal the movement of its oil cargoes. Iran regularly changes the flags on its ships, renames tankers, and turns off their automatic identification systemsto avoid being tracked. Moreover, according to aU.S. Treasury report,Iran deployed a range of front companies with help from Hezbollah to be able to sell its oil despite the sanctions.

Even when we could track movements of Iranian tankers there was a lack of will within the U.S. government to stop them, not only because of constraints of international law but also because the U.S. was just worried about Irans retaliation in the Persian Gulf, Nadimi said. Iran has proved it can do some nasty things, he added, alluding to alleged Iranian attacks on Saudi, Emirati, and other vessels. Iran even seized a British-flagged tanker, the Stena Impero, in July 2019, in retaliation for Gibraltar seizing a Syria-bound Iranian oil tanker, the Grace 1, two weeks earlier.

Experts say that while U.S. sanctions have succeeded in blocking the movement of money through banking channels, they achieved little success in stopping Iran from selling crude at reduced prices for cash. Energy analysts have seena steady risein Irans oil exports since late last year. According to United Against Nuclear Iran, an advocacy group and a critic of the 2015 nuclear deal, Syria received the second-most oil barrels from Iran since December 2020; many times more were exportedto China.

Under recently unseated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel was accused of attacking a dozen Iranian ships, mostly those carrying fuel to Syria and some supplying arms to Irans proxies, but none headed toward China. In April this year, Israel attacked an Iranian vessel called MV Saviz that was anchored in the Red Sea and suspected to be a floating armory for Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen. From the Israeli perspective it was an Iranian naval outpost in the Red Sea that endangered safe navigation of Israeli cargo.

Israels new Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has held even more hawkish views than his predecessor and has reportedly suggested that Israel must attack Iran whenever its proxiesHezbollah or Hamasblow up anything inside Israel. Less than a month after he came to power, Iran accused Israel of targeting a nuclear facility in Karaj reportedly producing centrifuges to replace those damaged in Israels previous covert attacks at the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran.

Many Israeli analysts believe that Israels covert hits inside Iran and overt airstrikes in Syria on Irans arms depots serve Israels strategic interests better than naval attacks. The growing consensus among experts seems to be that Bennett must take only calculated risks in the maritime arena while continuing with land, air, and cybersecurity sabotage of Irans nuclear apparatus. They are unsure, however,whether Bennett, who is eager to come across as even more unforgiving of Iran than Netanyahu, would listen.

Eran Lerman, a former deputy national security advisor for the office of the Israeli prime minister, said that Bennetts policy would differ from Netanyahus only in his dealings with Bidenwith whom he would aim to keep differences behind closed doors instead of making a public spectacle of themwhile maintaining a tough stand against Iran. His intention would be to not undermine the Biden administration but to retain Israels right to act freely, Lerman said.

Others said Israel must avoid getting dragged into a dangerous navalconflict. Shaul Chorev, a retired Israeli rear admiral who heads the Maritime Policy and Strategy Research Center at the University of Haifa and previously led the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, advises caution. Attacking Iranian tankers neither discourages Iran from enriching uranium nor from bankrolling Hezbollah and other proxies, Chorev said. A naval conflict comes at a high cost to us too, especially inareas in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea which are outside the range of the Israeli Navy and its ability to protect Israeli-owned vessels sailing in this region.

Meanwhile, the people of Lebanon continue to struggle with fuel scarcity. If the naval war between Israel and Iran expands, that struggle will last a while longer yet.

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Iran and Israel's Naval War in the Mediterranean Is Expanding - Foreign Policy