At Publicite Universelle, and after our success with Personna, Cutty Sark and Freshy, the agency felt it had developed an edge with its budding creative reputation, which was brought alive by the French-trained Armenian creative director and its in-house photography. My Asahi Pentax SP camera became the most valued weapon in our arsenal – to the extent that existing clients actively worked to find advertising budgets for brands they had not aggressively supported before.
Fontana added extra funds to its already heavy TV investment to promote its furniture and tactical activities (sales, seasonal offers etc.) in the press.
Baroody Brothers & Company, which had previously limited its support of Ronson Lighters to material supplied by the manufacturer, now embraced a generation of locally produced campaigns to better target Lebanese buyers and the scores of Gulf Arabs who spent their summers in Lebanon.
Then one day, when I was preparing for my final exams at AUB with friends, including Nadim Baroody, my cousin, and the son of Emile, I spotted a table for playing cards with a green felt top. I used this to create the backdrop for a Mennen Skin Bracer ad – inspired by a campaign that was running in France – and got Georges Moussallem, one of our study companions, to pose as the ad’s hero.
We became very active producing ads for all these assignments, and I enjoyed every second of my days at Publicite Universelle. Then, one day, my elementary school friend Rafic Najjar asked me to accompany him to a meeting with his cousin, Raja Najjar, who was at that time on the cusp of taking the helm of the Najjar empire founded by his father.