Alain Khouri, who was armed with a graphic design diploma from Brussels, returned to Beirut before many of the rest. In 1969, he established a creative hot shop that he named Publi Graphics, which he later sold, and in January 1971 he launched Impact. In the fall of 1978, a representative of the Omnicom Group in the US visited Beirut and called a few leading Lebanese agency owners to meet with him. Khouri was one of the people who answered the invitation. The dialogue that started then led to a partnership that resulted in the establishment of Impact BBDO, which over time grew to become the largest Omnicom network agency in the MENA region, with offices in Lebanon, Egypt, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and Qatar.
Impact BBDO was the only agency to be headquartered in Cyprus during the Lebanese Civil War, until it moved to Dubai in 1982. While in Cyprus, this agency used Madco in Dubai to help in planning and booking its UAE media campaigns. Burhan Baidas, the owner of Madco, was known to personally negotiate every single media plan he was holding. If he failed to force the media to accept the discounted rate he was suggesting, he would drop that medium and move it to another one that offered a steeper discount. When Alain settled in Dubai, I personally accompanied him on an introduction tour amongst the UAE media.
Impact BBDO widened its service offering by establishing a PR consultancy in partnership with Omnicom’s Porter Novelli. Impact BBDO also introduced Proximity, the Omnicom Group digital services company[1].
In 1972, McCann Erickson established an agency of its own in Bahrain to service General Motors and Gulf Air in the GCC region. After Mustapha Assad’s purchase of Publi Graphics in 1973 and the winning of the General Motors business for Lebanon, the Interpublic Group (IPG), McCann Erickson’s parent company, introduced an exclusive exchange agreement between McCann and Publi Graphics, by which Publi Graphics would represent McCann in the Middle East, including taking over its Bahrain office[2].
In its early years, Publi Graphics was rumored to have been the partner of the Japanese giant Dentsu, as Mustapha was close to its chairman, Gohei Kogure, and to Shuzo Ishikawa, the agency’s executive management director, who encouraged Dentsu’s 20 per cent equity participation in Publi Graphics around early 1990.
As a result of the Gulf War, Dentsu decided to disinvest and pulled out of this partnership but maintained a working relationship with Publi Graphics. In 1990, the agency changed its name to become Publicis Graphics following an approach by Maurice Lévy of Publicis to join forces with Mustapha[3].
After graduating from AUB, Akram Miknass, who was born and raised in Tripoli, established an exhibition company with seven AUB colleagues, which they called Promotion 7. The company quickly ran into financial difficulties, which led the partners to sell and leave. Akram changed the line of business to advertising and established an agency called Promoseven. Promoseven launched a brand of chicken which it helped in naming Lipoul. Its success with this launch helped the agency acquire the advertising accounts of ABC, L’Oréal, and Penguin[4].
In 1975, Miknass left Lebanon for Bahrain, where he was sponsored by a gentleman by the name of Jameel Wafa, a friend of his late father who helped introduce him to Cathay Pacific, Coca-Cola and Dubai Duty Free. This led to a tie-up with an Asian agency network and the name was changed to Fortune Promoseven. Around 1988, Akram established a partnership with McCann World group, the creative brand of IPG[5]. In 2008, IPG acquired a 51 per cent stake in what has since become the Middle East Communications Network (MCN).
[1] Lebanon Communicating – Page 166
[2] Play It Again – Pages 36 & 54
[3] Lebanon Communicating – Page 110
[4] Akram Miknass – Book “لم أنته” – Pages 81 & 101
[5] The Arabian Marketer – Edition of February 2018 – Pages 10 & 11