Chapter 102\ Life is a journey…

Eddie Moutran fell in love with one of Gulf Air’s flight hostesses and they got married. This made Bahrain a very popular holiday destination for Intermarkets’ second most eligible bachelor, Youssef Habbab the general manager of Intermarkets Kuwait. During one of Youssef’s holiday breaks in Bahrain – as he, too, had started working on marriage arrangements with a Gulf Air stewardess – I received a call from Fouad Sahyoun an old friend as well as business associate and a client of the Kuwait agency. Fouad seems to have called Youssef a couple of times, but when he failed to reach him, he asked for my number and called me in Beirut.

The Pan Arab Computer Centre (PACC), which Fouad co-owned and managed, had entrusted our Kuwait agency with the task of organizing a major launch on its behalf. The deadline was getting close, and they had not received any updates, including the invitation cards, which they felt were extremely delayed in being distributed. Fouad was furious. I tried but failed to get through to Youssef, so I called Eddie, who told me that Youssef had travelled to Singapore to plan for an imminent wedding. This made me take the afternoon flight to Kuwait and, by the time I landed, the invitation cards had been delivered to PACC. However, I instantly discovered that Fouad had left me more than one message to call him back. It was only when I called that I realized my two friends – Fouad and Youssef – had recently been in a personal conflict and all the minor flaws were being blown out of proportion. Fouad’s latest complaint related to the fact that PACC was short staffed and did not have enough people to put the cards into the addressed envelopes. Fouad claimed that this was part of his agreement with Youssef and threatened – again – to fire Intermarkets. To diffuse this new bomb, I asked all the agency staff to accompany me to the offices of PACC, where we stayed until very late that night, stuffing invitation cards into envelopes, despite the insistence of my staff that I should not be involved in this type of work.

The next morning, everything went back to normal on the Fouad Sahyoun front, which allowed me to spend the rest of the day touring other clients.

As I walked towards the lift in the early evening on my way to the airport, escorted by Bassam Sabah and Fouad Kanafani, the door of the lift opened to reveal a short Lebanese executive surrounded by a group of Japanese gentlemen, one of whom was leading the rest towards Intermarkets Kuwait’s glass door. The Japanese leader was pointing to Abdel Latif Jameel’s Toyota posters, which had been sent by Intermarkets Saudi Arabia and were on display in the Kuwait agency’s reception. This was a strange accidental encounter, since the young Lebanese instantly guessed that we belonged to the office behind us; so, he introduced himself as Rashid Al Kadi, resident manager of the Nissan Gulf office, which was located on the top floor of the same building as Intermarkets Kuwait.

The senior Japanese executive, who was introduced as Norio Osawa and carried the title of general manager for the Middle East Export Department, seemed eager to know why we had Toyota posters on display.

After hearing my explanation on the posters, Osawa-San – as he asked us to call him – explained that they were looking for an advertising agency to handle Nissan’s campaigns all over the Middle East. They had been attracted by the posters we had created for Toyota, which they’d been appreciating every time the lift stopped on our floor. Being a bold and direct executive, Osawa-San wanted to know if we would be interested in resigning the Toyota business to handle Nissan.

I invited the Nissan people into the agency, as we had been having our conversation at the elevator landing and reception. I requested Fouad Kanafani – in a whisper – to go and check me out of my hotel, collect my packed suitcase and return to pick me up and drive me to the airport.

The visitors were also in a hurry, so we continued our dialogue while standing around the conference table. I first made sure that Osawa-San was referring to a regional (i.e., Pan-Arab) agency appointment that Nissan was contractually able to put into effect, and only when I had their assurance did, I explain that we were only handling the Toyota advertising account of Abdel Latif Jameel, the Toyota dealer in Saudi Arabia. Their question on whether we were interested in handling the Nissan regional advertising account sounded interesting, but the matter was too serious to be concluded this way. I promised to go back to Intermarkets’ group general management, and even if we all agreed, we would still have to go to Abdel Latif Jameel and discuss matters with them. Only then could we revert with a “yay” or “nay”.

We exchanged contacts and I escorted them out, after which I dashed to the airport, barely making it in time for the MEA Beirut flight.