How did advertising in the Middle East take off? I’ve heard that it started following the discovery of oil and the subsequent influx of Western products and companies.
Right, oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia in 1938 but it wasn’t until the 1960s that the West discovered the potentially huge purchasing power of this part of the world. However, in terms of media, the region’s infrastructure wasn’t at all conceived to be Pan-Arab. We didn’t have Arab satellites, the Internet, Pan-Arab newspapers, terrestrial TV, nothing.
So, what happened?
The stubborn nature of the West - they had to identify one single media that was, more or less, Pan-Arab. There were only three publications, all published in Lebanon, which covered all the issues of the Arab nations: Al-Hawadeth, Usboh Al Arabi and Al Diyar. They were sold in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon and the UAE. It was like someone seeking to prove a point even when they discovered that their point is not plausible. They found this meagre, small thing but it highlights the capable salesmanship of the Lebanese for the three magazines ended up aligning with the Western agencies. They took a shrewd marketing approach in presenting themselves as all that was needed to reach the Arab world. There was Elie Kai for instance, one of the veteran pioneers, Antoine Choueiry, and Mustapha Assad, the founder of the Arab ad agency, Public Reference.
Three men?
They went everywhere in the West, proclaiming that there was a Pan-Arab way of advertising. I lived it for I was an account executive at that time. Our problem was convincing media reps from those three magazines to sell us a page. They were so oversubscribed that there was a queue. You’d have to wait six or seven months for a back cover. We were using any means available to get the decision makers to sell us a page.
All the companies, be it the Saatchi’s, James Walter Thompson’s (JWT), or McCann-Erickson’s, wanted to identify any partner in this part of the world who could tell them they were covered and that they could deliver. We succeeded in representing JWT, Saatchi and Saatchi, and others. The other agencies had their own. We weren’t entirely honest with our clients, with regard to the periodicals: how many Arabs actually read them, even what the actual literacy rate was here. It wasn’t even one or two per cent. It was very smart, but it was a hoax.
The clients didn’t understand that?
They didn’t have a choice. It was a gold rush mentality, either you get in, or you’re out. I had people knocking on my door, ready to sign.
So, how do we go from print to other media?
Later on, VHS became big in Saudi Arabia. Companies used to rent you movies to watch at home. And these movies were Egyptian or Indian. Antoine Choueiry came up with the truly great idea of placing a five-minute commercial break every thirty minutes in each film. It was crazy, 10,000 USD for a slot, all image-based. This was the very beginning of the Pan-Arab ‘mirage’ that ended up creating modern, Pan-Arab media.
But we’re still talking about a very limited approach.
After the fever passed, the agencies realised that they were doing something wrong. It wasn’t working [referring to the limited audience for the periodicals and the Saudi-centric nature of the video ads]. In the end they started seeing what could be done to grab more market share. Some creative agencies from the Arab world started convincing the West that they had to change their approach. It wasn’t enough to take an ad, subtitle it with Arabic and put it in a magazine. We had to probe the culture of the people, think like them, act like them, dream like them. It took time, some bought the concept, others didn’t.
Who was the first to buy into this new approach?
P&G were the first. They assigned fieldwork to their agencies in order to gain insights into the culture. What makes a Saudi lady choose a detergent? It turned out that Saudi women were much more interested in how white the soaps could make their garments, perhaps because it’s more intimate, colours were less important. Shampoos, nappies, everything related to the fast moving industry, P&G are everywhere. The result was fantastic. Advertising moved from cropped, subtitled ads, to ones conceived through addressing the market.
How much of this was coming from the Middle Eastern side?
It was a collegial thing. There was unease at the client end, and a proactive, creative move from us. Everyone learnt the lesson and Johnson & Johnson followed, then Moulinex and all the others. If you’re the first human to discover fire, your neighbour borrows it.
Magazines, videos, what else?
Outdoor advertising, it can do the job and it’s very cost efficient. And, it doesn’t talk; they didn’t need an intellectual argument as to why you should buy the product. They want branding, they want to recognise the product. So, shots of the product, a few lines, it worked. That was in the 1970s, 1980s, in Saudi and Kuwait. In fact, outdoors accounted for more than 80 per cent of spending at the time, displays in shops, billboards, on the side of buildings, on the highway. It was a way of dealing with the rule of censorship we see in the Arab world. What is the best way to only deliver packaging, no content, no opinion, no statements? Outdoors. It’s very visual. It was seen as similar to a sign on a shop. It could be allowed in without concern.
Who was doing this? Who had the idea?
I don’t know who started it, but it was in Saudi that Antoine Choueiry boomed it.
And TV?
In 1959, the first TV station opened, in Lebanon, it was private. Lebanon was the only country that allowed the private sector to go to the authorities and open a station. Later on, Kuwait opened up a state-owned station. Saudi followed, but they banned ads. Nevertheless, Eastern Saudi Arabia could pick up Kuwaiti TV, which carried ads. As a result, Saudi companies starting advertising on Kuwaiti TV. This made the Saudis realise they were losing money so they ended up allowing it.
What about Pan-Arab?
That came with the satellites, CNN was a revelation. It was a period in which people really began thinking globally. I would say that Lebanon was the only country ready for this and LBC was the first station that went international. Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, the others followed.
Who were the people behind TV advertising?
They’re the same ones as before, and Abou Daoud in Saudi Arabia –they’re the P&G partners.
If you had to name two or three people who had the greatest impact in the early years, who would they be?
I’ll segment it: the pusher and the creative mind, someone coming up with the ideas and someone going out to sell them. The sales part: Antoine Choueiry [who passed away earlier this year] is a name that you cannot but take seriously. Elie Kai is another salesman. From the ad agencies, the creative side, I would definitely say, Ervin Gurevich and Mustapha Assad. Gurevich died 10 years ago. He was Lebanese of Czech descent, married to a Lebanese and he started Intermarkets. He was a very ambitious man, he knew that the formula couldn’t end with delivery, it would go further. When problems started in Lebanon, he opened in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi, the UAE. Mustapha Assad did the same with Public Reference. Throughout the early days, you only had these two networks available in more than one country. That’s where you, as a businessman, had to go. Who had the reputation? Assad and Gurevich. Public Reference, and Intermarkets.
Ramsay Najjar is founder of Strategic Consultancy Company and is currently writing a book detailing the history of advertising in the Middle East.
