My expression of intent to help TBWA establish its own presence in the Middle East, which I had confirmed to Reg Lascaris and Giulio Cimato, was not enough. I was asked to fly to New York for a meeting with the Omnicom leadership.
On arrival, I was supposed to call on Bill Tragos, who would accompany me to the meeting at the parent company’s global headquarters. On the flight, I had sunk into the memory of my first visit to TBWA\Worldwide in May of that year, when Bill had introduced me to Mary Maroun, the CEO of the New York agency and who was of Lebanese origin. Bill also introduced me to Peter Economides, who was the friend of my P&G client, Dennis Malamatinas, and who showed me around the New York agency, where staff checked in as they arrived in the morning, picked up laptops and mobile phones, then went to sit with their account teams anywhere around the office. No one had their own desk and I saw groups of these young people either sitting around a coffee table at the agency’s milk bar or huddled on bean bags in one of the office corners. Before concluding my visit, I was introduced to Richard Lewis, the man who had overseen the Absolut Vodka account since 1978. Richard presented me with a copy of the Absolut Book, which he, Tragos, Maroun and Economides had signed.
ABSOLUT BOOK.
The next morning, the chauffeur of Mr. Tragos, who was dressed in a dark blue silver-buttoned outfit and a cap carrying the TBWA logo, picked me up from the Marriott Hotel – at New York’s Twin Towers – and drove me to Omnicom’s offices. Bill was waiting at 437 Madison Avenue to accompany and introduce me to Bruce Crawford, the group chairman, John Wren, the number two executive at the group, and Randy Weisenburger, the executive vice president and chief financial officer, all of whom were awaiting my arrival. The meeting was very straightforward. Bill introduced me to the three senior executives and simply asked me to introduce myself.
Although this meeting was held 22 years ago, I still remember that Crawford stopped me to enquire further about the English School for Boys, where I had carried out my elementary and secondary education. He picked up on the fact that it was a missionary school and enquired about the meaning of that terminology. Wren wanted to learn more about the period and the brands that formed my P&G experience, while Randy was greatly interested in my own interpretation of the discrepancies encountered with Intermarkets’ books.
The meeting was very pleasant and was punctuated by a lunch of sandwiches and salads. At the end, Bill told me that his driver would drop me back at the hotel, since he had further mattered to discuss at Omnicom. My wife was accompanying me on this trip, so the moment I walked into my hotel room she jumped up to greet me with a wide smile, saying: “Congratulations! Bill Tragos just called to say that the project is on, as all the Omnicom executives with whom you met were impressed and they want you to go ahead.”
Giulio Cimato flew to Dubai to help in formulating the partnership agreement. We kept our movements extremely hushed. I was still operating as a consultant for the Dubai Press Club and trying to avoid being faced with a legal case by the new owners of Intermarkets. I booked Giulio at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel at the end of town to avoid the crowds. The hotel manager was a friend and he upgraded Giulio to suite number 512, one of the Jumeirah Beach Hotel’s royal suites. Via its New York lawyers, TBWA commissioned the Dubai law firm Al Tamimi & Company to draft the agreement. The law firm assigned a pregnant lady to draft and handle our file, which had a slowing effect on the process as she kept feeling unwell and failing to show up at our working sessions.
The first hurdle we had to overcome was convincing TBWA\Worldwide of the need to take onboard a national partner to own (on paper) 51 per cent of the company. It vehemently refused to accept this legal requirement and took time to check with other Omnicom companies and some clients before finally agreeing. At that stage, I introduced Abdel Rahman Ghanem Al Mutaiwee, head of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry – who was a very close friend – to act as our national sponsor.
Every morning I drove to the Jumeirah Beach Hotel and rang Giulio in his room. The moment he stepped out of the lift, he walked directly to the front desk, where he asked about the rate, he was going to be charged for the suite he was staying in. He remained concerned throughout his stay that the hotel would forget the upgrade it had offered him.
At that time, the trade media published a rumor that Omnicom was considering taking over the ailing Saatchi & Saatchi and merging it with TBWA. This made me insist that an additional clause be included in my partnership agreement, stipulating that I would always be responsible for the development of the TBWA business in the Middle East. I wanted to avoid a situation where TBWA would be granted the Saatchi network in the Middle East by its parent company and relinquish the management of its business in our markets to someone from the acquired agency. I also insisted on naming the markets that would fall under my Middle East operation, adding Yemen and the markets of North Africa. These additional clauses had to be cleared by Omnicom and TBWA\Worldwide New York before they were finally incorporated in my agreement.