I was promoted from a trainee to an employee at Publicite Universelle, cashing my first ever salary of 125 Lebanese pounds, even though I had to continue rushing to AUB because most of my chosen classes were in the afternoons.
On payday, I invited several my Publicite Universelle colleagues – namely Georges Feghali, Eddie Masri, the agency’s media buyer, and Fawzi Chamoun – to a knafeh breakfast at Al Samadi Sweets, which was within walking distance of the agency at the Salha & Samadi building. This was a newly completed landmark at the heart of Martyrs’ Square, the main square of the Lebanese capital. The building had an egg-shaped cinema that had become the talk of the town. The chimney of the oven at Samadi Sweets pointed towards Al Awkaf Islamyah building. Every morning when they started baking the knafeh, its smell made all the people at the agency crave for the most popular Lebanese breakfast sweet.
In the early Seventies, Lebanon had two television stations. Compagnie Libanaise de Television (CLT), operated Channel 7, with its Arabic language programming, and Channel 9, the French language service. This station was managed by an ex-Lebanese army general, Suleiman Nofal, and was located at Tallet Al-Khayat in Beirut.
Selling airtime for advertising was handled by a company called Advision, which was managed by a very dynamic advertising professional who was one of the people behind the establishment of the Lebanon chapter for the International Advertising Association (IAA). Mounir Takshi was a frequent traveler and had the habit of sending postcards from every destination he visited to friends, especially major advertisers on CLT. Takshi’s postcards were often shown and appreciated by Emile Baroody at our Monday meetings.
Advision employed a few account executives; each was assigned to an advertised brand and accordingly an advertising agency. Samir Matta, Kamal Ayoub, Walid Yasmine, Tony Aad and Faisal Al Halabi were all integral members of Advision’s sales team who I was introduced to and became friends with during my time at Publicite Universelle.
The second station was Télé-Orient, which transmitted from Hazmieh and was managed by Lucien Dahdah. The advertising sales department at Télé-Orient had two names that were known to me, and these were Nahi Ghorayeb and Adnan Choucair.
General Foods had always been a major TV advertiser, and at Publicite Universelle we wanted to show our new client the added value we could bring to their media buying. As we met internally to prepare their media plans, Philippe Hitti resorted to his usual approach of picking sides every time he felt that two parties were competing. My agency boss knew that he would be able to get the maximum from the party he sided with every time he played this game.
As the competition between CLT and Télé-Orient was at its peak, Philippe called Adnan Choucair and invited him to lunch since he had great news to share.
Our lunch venue was the Lucullus, a French seafood restaurant and one of the most popular restaurants amongst businessmen in Beirut. The Lucullus was located on the top floor of the renovated khan at the lower end of Khan Antoun-Bey, the street that was named after the stagecoach stables of old Beirut. The restaurant itself overlooked the Mediterranean.
The fish and seafood served at this restaurant were the freshest in Beirut and our guest was known to be a food gourmand, so he volunteered to accompany our attending waiter to select our lunch from amongst the catch-of-the day, while Philippe was unbelievably fast in re-ordering bottles of Musar’s Blanc de Blanc, even before the one on the table had finished.
It was a joyous lunch as Choucair toasted and congratulated us on the General Foods win, and Philippe reciprocated by announcing that, from that day, all General Foods advertising would run exclusively on Télé-Orient.
Exclusivity has its privileges and Philippe could not wait to learn what he would get for this major switch. Adnan wanted to work the details out back at the office but, upon Philippe’s insistence, the two took out their pens and used the table napkins to jot down their calculations, while I was impressed by Philippe’s very fast calculation of program breaks and spots. Lunch ended on a high note of thanks and giggles. Then, when we got back to the agency, Philippe closed his office door, and I could overhear him reporting to Emile Baroody the details of his Télé-Orient deal with great pride.
Afternoon siestas were common in Beirut during the Sixties and Seventies. After the siesta that day, our telephone operator passed me a call from Adnan Choucair, explaining that he had called for Philippe Hitti, who did not take the call. As the line was being transferred, Philippe dashed into my office, pointing to a sheet of paper he was holding, on which he had hurriedly scribbled: TELL HIM I AM NOT HERE, ALSO SAY THAT THE TV SCHEDULE WE HAD SCRIBBLED ON THE NAPKIN HAD ALREADY BEEN SEEN BY GF AND THEY’RE EXTREMELY HAPPY.
At that very moment, Adnan burst in to alert me – in a panicky voice – that the calculations that had been worked out on the napkin had many mistakes and needed to be corrected before they were shown to the client. I repeated the message that Philippe had communicated, adding a lot of salt and pepper to it by dramatizing the new American client’s pleasant reaction and the great appreciation of Baroody Brothers & Company.
On my own, I made it clear to Choucair that it was too late to change what was communicated to our new client, as we would be better served by not showing that we were unable to multiply and add at this early stage in the relationship. Therefore, I told him that Télé-Orient should accept and honor this first campaign booking for General Foods from our agency.
Later, Philippe told me that the lunch invitation and the relentless wine service were all part of his plan. He also admitted that he had personally generated the multiplication mistake to arrive at this less expensive saturation campaign, partly due to the steep channel exclusivity discount and the additional reduction brought on by the wrong calculation.
Pierre Beurskens and Emile Baroody never stopped walking on clouds and complimenting Publicite Universelle throughout this campaign period, while the entire Publicite Universelle team enjoyed another Knafeh breakfast with the compliments of our agency management.