Chapter 41\ The day we revoked the cigarette advertising ban

One fine day, Youssef Habbab called Beirut requesting help with a meeting he was arranging with Philip Morris. Marlboro cigarettes had become the market leader in Kuwait, although the local market had always been a Virginia tobacco stronghold, with Rothmans, Dunhill, State Express 555 and Craven A outselling all other cigarette brands.

At the time, Lebanon was the most preferred summer resort for Kuwaitis with a good number of the well-to-do amongst them, including the country’s Emir, having palaces in Aley, Dhour Al Abadiyeh and Bhamdoun. The summer season was the time when a large number took their annual pilgrimage to Lebanon, where they spent their holidays.

Globally, Ogilvy & Mather’s “Come to Marlboro Country”^[1] campaign was helping the brand transfer from its old image of being the red-tipped female cigarette, to the macho masculine cigarette smoked by cowboys. In Lebanon, Marlboro was making inroads thanks to Publicite Orientale’s campaign, which featured the Temple of Jupiter, a bowl of Lebanese fruits and the Forest of the Cedars, and it was having an unprecedented influence on the country’s smoking population. Young Lebanese made this brand their status symbol by parading around with the red Marlboro pack clearly visible in the breast pockets of their white shirts. During the summer of 1973, Kuwaiti visitors – who had always looked at the Lebanese as trendsetters in the region – rushed to buy cartons of Marlboro to take back home and show-off.

Youssef Habbab had bumped into an AUB classmate who was working for Philip Morris and was responsible for the Kuwaiti market. The friend excitedly told Youssef that he was planning to launch an original event in Kuwait, with the objective of making Marlboro the talk of the town and providing the brand with an additional reason for popularity beyond its market leadership in Lebanon. He desperately needed help as their Beirut-based advertising agency was not capable of helping in Kuwait. Youssef wanted one of the seasoned account handlers in Beirut to join him at the orientation meeting and to then return to help with the implementation of the event.

As expected, I was selected for the task, and the next day I took an MEA flight to Kuwait dreaming of galloping in “Marlboro Country”. I was full of anticipation, since cigarette accounts were the ultimate dream for any advertising agency, and Intermarkets was not an exception.

Our common friend had arranged with Kuwait Airways and Kuwait Airport Authority to allow the Marlboro Formula 1 racing car, which was on its way from Monte Carlo, to race one of Kuwait Airways’ Boeing 707s on the runway of the international airport. The plan included a private invitation to VIPs, who would be seated at a purpose-built stadium, and, in parallel, a public invitation that was to be sent via all media channels inviting the public to view the race from their cars, which were to be parked outside the airport fence. Since most of the logistics had been attended to, the agency’s role was to design the main visual that was to be used on all the collateral material, as well as on print ads and outdoor sites. Obviously, TV was out of bounds for cigarettes.

There were tons of items to be produced and I flew back to Beirut loaded with an exhaustive shopping list, as well as the more interesting prospect of winning the Marlboro account.

I couldn’t wait to report this outcome to my management the next day. However, the moment I walked into the room of Erwin Guerrovich, where he, Raymond Hanna, Nahi Ghorayeb and Samir Fares were all waiting for my arrival, the red phone on Erwin’s desk rang. This was a direct line, and the dialing details were restricted to a privileged few. Erwin picked up the phone and all in the room could hear the screaming of what sounded like a very nervous caller. Erwin immediately picked up his jacket while anxiously explaining to all of us assembled around his desk that the caller was Jean Fattal, who wanted Erwin to rush to an urgent meeting at the Fattal building on La Marseillaise Street. It sounded as though there was trouble in the air, so we all waited for the update with great concern.

After almost an hour, Erwin returned with a frown on his face. Jean Fattal had asked him in a rude, sarcastic tone what could possibly satisfy his vicious appetite and that of his Intermarkets partners? He also asked if anyone at Intermarkets had been to Kuwait for a meeting with Philip Morris, and when Erwin gave his confirmation to the second question, Jean Fattal flared up. His face became crimson red when he explained that Mohammad Choucair, the owner of Publicite Orientale, was a universally respected businessman, not only in Lebanon but around the entire region. Philip Morris was known to be the sacred account of Shoucair’s agency, and accordingly all people at Intermarkets needed to exercise absolute restraint towards Philip Morris and any other client handled by Publicite Orientale. Erwin reminded us of all that Jean Fattal was known for saying “at KFF we do not have principals, we have friends”. As he was getting ready to leave the office, Jean Fattal called Erwin back and told him to ensure that any promises or commitments made in Kuwait in the past two days needed to be instantly cancelled in writing, and he wanted to be copied on the correspondence.

Having been repetitively told how Jean Fattal’s instructions needed to be treated by everyone at Intermarkets, I immediately called Youssef Habbab and, while waiting for the telephone company to pass on the call, our agency’s operator rang me on another line to announce that Youssef Habbab was waiting to speak to me. Youssef sounded as if he was crying when he told me that our friend, the Philip Morris Kuwait marketing executive, had just called to announce that he had suddenly and unexpectedly lost his job. This meant that all our planning during the previous days had been cancelled. Youssef was extremely sad for our friend, who had been fired the second he dared to initiate a dialogue with an agency different to Publicite Orientale. At the head office of Intermarkets in Beirut, the anticipation of winning a heavy spending cigarette account evaporated in the blink of an eye

Many years after this incident, and by the time I had moved to Dubai to lead the Intermarkets UAE operation, I received a call from a gentleman called Georges Nassif, who introduced himself as the head of corporate affairs for the GCC at Philip Morris. Nassif seemed to have recently joined the local chapter of the IAA, where I was president, and had listened to one of my lectures. He called to enquire if we at Intermarkets had any PR capabilities, and whether we were handling any account that was a competitor to Philip Morris. When he received my assuring response to his first question and my negative answer to the second, a lengthy clearance process was initiated with the close involvement of Philip Morris’ Geneva HQ. Now, when I try to recall the number of additional questions we had to answer and the amount of documents we had to submit in the process of acquiring the company’s green light, which allowed us entry into its communication partners’ club, I get the feeling that it would have been easier to secure a clearance to join one of NASA’s shuttles to outer space, which were making news headlines then.

When we finally sat for the briefing with Nassif and his team, we came to know that our efforts would have to concentrate on combatting juvenile smoking as a primary responsibility. In parallel, we were expected to work on correcting the misconception that smoking is a more serious health hazard than many other forgotten pollutants, such as sick building syndrome, asbestos, and car and factory emissions.

I went back to Kuwait in my capacity as IAA UAE Chapter president accompanied by the Philip Morris team and several key media players, including Rafic Chlala, president of the Arab Federation of Arab News Agencies, just as the government decided to ban the advertising of cigarettes and tobacco products. This ban was part of a GCC initiative to combat the increasing number of smokers in the interest of a healthier population, and Kuwait had decided to take the lead. The IAA was amongst those whose objectives were based on the protection of freedom of speech and took the lead in rebutting this ad ban.

By that time, George Nassif had been replaced by Bechara Baroody, who happened to be a distant relative. In consultation with other tobacco companies, Bechara and I travelled to Kuwait a couple of days before the advertising ban was to be implemented. Our first action was to tour all Kuwaiti publishers, to whom we presented an elaborate study on the Kuwaiti advertising market and the drop it had already witnessed due to the economic situation across the GCC. The size of cigarette advertising investment in Kuwait was considerable, implying that a ban could be detrimental to print media.

It was encouraging to note the instant support our initiative received from leading publishers, such as Ahmad Al Jarallah, Bibi Al Marzouk, Fahd Al Masaeed, and others. This led to an agreement between all Kuwaiti publishers, the tobacco companies, and their advertising agencies. The parties agreed that all cigarette brands sold in Kuwait would ask their ad agencies to book full-page ads – in an already planned newspaper roster. This meant that brands who had never advertised before in print media – as well as the heavily advertised brands – would all have their ads appear on the day of the ban to make a collective defiant statement demanding the law to be revoked. The agreement was meant to ensure that no brand would chicken out and betray the solidarity of all the parties involved due to an ultimatum sent by Kuwait’s Ministries of Information and Public Health, which had announced steep fines for media and tobacco companies that failed to abide by the new law. The defiant agreement was made possible only when the publishers jointly agreed to meet with the ministers and present to them the case that Philip Morris and we had prepared. In case the ministers did not agree to revoke the law, the publishers took it upon themselves to pay both their fines and those of the tobacco companies.

The night before “B” day was a night full of suspense and anticipation. We kept moving between the printing presses to ensure that all ads were received, and all the newspapers were carrying on with their promises. Then came the ban day, when all the publishers were summoned and received a rough scolding from the country’s ruler, who concluded his firm message by surprisingly announcing the acceptance to revoke the law as he understood the business consequences.

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^[1] History of Advertising – Page 108 till 111 – Stephane Pincas & Marc Loiseau

Adland – Pages 72 & 73 – Mark Tungate