Chapter 65\ Who dares fire Unilever?

The Anglo-Dutch giant Unilever, famous for Lux, Lifebuoy, Sunsilk, OMO, Jif, and many other household brands, was one of the major companies represented by KFF in Lebanon. This had been an age-old partnership and, as I came onboard at Intermarkets, I learnt that the agency’s boss, Erwin Guerrovich, had spent an extended internship period at Unilever’s largest research and development center in Port Sunlight, England, as part of his professional formation. When Guerrovich returned to Lebanon and established the advertising department at KFF, it was no surprise that Unilever instructed its global advertising agency, SSC&B Lintas, to channel all its local campaigns to this department. Lintas (Lever International Advertising Services) had been established in 1899 as an in-house advertising agency for Lever Brothers and secured its independence in 1930.

After the establishment of Intermarkets, Unilever realized the potential of using this regional advertising network to maximize the efficiency of its investment in the oil-rich markets of the Arabian Gulf. Unilever’s product range was beefed up and the company’s sales started to grow in an unprecedented manner. At the same time, Lintas was gradually losing the ongoing debate with KFF and its local agency regarding the direction of its advertising. Lintas had tried hard but failed to overcome the negative attitude of KFF’s owners, Khalil, and Bernard Fattal, as well as their general manager, Jack Yamine, who, despite his American education, knew that housewives buying Lux and OMO would be better influenced by women using the everyday Lebanese dialect rather than the rough Gulf dialects delivered by the Arabists that Lintas was accustomed to using in its TV commercials produced in London.

As its Unilever Middle East portfolio grew, Lintas quickly appointed Tommy Atkins and Brenda Allen to handle campaigns for the Arab market. The couple were long timers with the agency and their experience helped to quickly build strong relationships with Unilever’s Gulf distributors, as well as with the local media. My personal involvement with the Unilever business was marginal until I established Intermarkets in Dubai. The UAE was a key market for Unilever in the Gulf, and Dubai was the city where it established its regional office, which was managed by Phil Cooper, who I introduced earlier.

One day Phil called for a meeting and on arriving I instantly noticed a strange expression on his face. He locked the door of his office and produced from a folder on his desk a letter that he had received from his head office, sharing with him a circular it had received from an advertising agency called Publirizk in Sharjah. The head office covering letter requested their regional manager in the UAE to visit this agency. Phil was at loss. Firstly, he was embarrassed about sharing this internal Unilever communication with me, and secondly, not knowing what to do. Phil felt so relieved when he heard my chuckle accompanied by my encouragement to pay a visit to this agency as soon as he could. The circular was signed by one of Publirizk’s partners, Wajih Nakhle, who was announcing the agency’s recent move from Lebanon and the establishment of a branch in a dedicated building at the entrance of Al Wahda Street in Sharjah. The letter explained that the agency provided state-of-the-art advertising services to its many clients (his list included many names that were not theirs) and that its top floor was dedicated to its management and client servicing teams. The whole of the fourth floor was occupied by the marketing and research teams, the third floor was dedicated to the creative department and its studio, and the second floor had a conference room and screening rooms. Finally, the ground floor was for media planners and buyers. In addition, it used the basement for its printing press and outdoor signage workshop.

After a few days, Phil visited Publirizk and came directly to my humble three-person agency having laughed all the way from Sharjah to the creek-side street on which our Intermarkets UAE agency was located. It took him time to digest the fact that in the year 1975 there were still businessmen telling you stark lies while looking at your face, expecting you to believe them. Sadly, the instructions for Phil to take a more senior responsibility out of the Arabian Gulf came much faster than I had expected.

But for a long time prior to Phil’s transfer, he and our agency were engaged in a seemingly never-ending debate with Lintas over a Lux dishwashing liquid commercial. Lintas and its London-based Arab translator/writer were insisting on using an old-fashioned term to refer to the banquet plates at a modern family’s villa. Their translator, who had not been to the Arab world since his parents emigrated from Kuwait to London in the mid-Sixties, was blindly defending the voice-over he had prepared. It was clear to us that this old-time supplier did not want to lose the trust of his main client. This debate ended in silence from the Unilever/Lintas side for more than two months before Phil’s transfer and went on for another long period while we were waiting for Phil’s replacement.

Dubai and Abu Dhabi television stations were chasing us for material as a new campaign was booked and due to start. Finally, we received an alert from Lintas that the new commercials had been dispatched, so we rushed our traffic guys to clear the films from the government censorship authority. During the Seventies, all Arab TV stations only screened 16mm films. When we received the box containing the four films, I rushed with Cyril Peter, my account executive on Unilever, to the conference room (where we had placed the agency’s new 16mm projector) to view the final verdict. Cyril was the eager beaver type who claimed to know it all, including the placing of the thin celluloid film round the projector’s spools and then pressing the ‘play’ button. Instead of the light switching on and the film running smoothly through the screening chamber, the projector started chewing the film up with such a dramatic sound that it caused me to scream at Cyril to stop the projector before it ate the entire film. I was furious at Cyril for destroying one of the four precious copies we had just received but, at the same time, I was desperate to find out which term the UK client and agency had finally used to refer to the dinner plates. So, I instantly accepted Cyril’s apology and allowed him to try and screen a second copy. To my shock, the second copy was destroyed in the same manner and my screaming could be heard all over the agency. I was about to throw Cyril out of our second-floor window, but the poor man stayed cool and attempted to make me relax, saying he was able to get two replacement copies in time for the planned screening. I argued that it was impossible to order two replacement copies and get them from the UK in time, but Cyril begged me to relax and to trust him. I had no alternative but to stop shouting and listen.

So, I accompanied Cyril as he took one of the two remaining copies and went down to the street crossing by the Samir Al Mahmoud building. Like a victim on death row, I walked next to Cyril through Cosmos Lane into the backstreets of old Dubai until we reached what looked like a deserted old Arab house with a garden covered with dead vegetation. Cyril walked confidently through the backyard, and I followed. Next to what looked like the kitchen entrance was a huge wooden ladder laid against the wall. Cyril climbed and I followed. He walked across the roof to the extreme side of the house, which revealed a second similar house just behind. The moment we reached the edge, I suddenly heard the whining of machines coming from the windows. Cyril waved to me to follow as he jumped to the roof of this second house and, after a moment of hesitation, I jumped and landed safely on the second roof.  We climbed down a similar ladder, only to be welcomed by two Indians in what seemed to be their working vests. They welcomed Cyril as a very dear old friend and as he introduced me, they warmly welcomed me with a tray of very sweet tea served by one of their many assistants. I was quickly showed around lines of machines, which were all operating and producing the sound that we had heard on the roof. They took the film from Cyril and invited us to their office, which was as busy as a beehive.

As a VIP guest, the elder of the two explained to me that their underground operation had been supplying hundreds of 16mm duplicates of popular box office films to the Saudi market. This smuggling business had flourished in Dubai for many years, as most well-to-do families in the Kingdom had their own screening facilities, since cinemas were banned, and local TV stations aired mostly educational and religious content or heavily censored films. The younger brother soon came back with four additional copies of our Lux commercial, which Cyril seemed to have ordered and paid for from his own pocket. This allowed me the opportunity to view the commercial and, to my astonishment, the London team had stuck with their own translator’s Arabic, which I was certain KFF would refuse to air in Lebanon.

The regional management at Intermarkets felt that this case and many similar incidents were more damaging to the agency’s reputation than the share of commission we were getting from Lintas in return for this master/slave relationship. The conflict intensified with the media plans drawn up by the Lintas team. They were unconvincing, especially for the experts who lived in Unilever’s markets and not in an ivory tower in London. We formally requested copies of the media plans to review prior to their being confirmed, but our request was denied. At that stage, Youssef Habbab, the general manager of Intermarkets Kuwait, Eddie Moutran, the general manager of Intermarkets Bahrain, and I met at the Ennismore Gardens house of Mark Manasterski, Intermarkets’ resident manager in Europe. There, we persuaded our boss, Erwin Guerrovich, that we should be bold enough to resign the Unilever business, despite the emotional package that comes with this account. Jointly, we painted a promising picture of the added value Intermarkets would achieve from a resignation of this magnitude. We also agreed to immediately go after the P&G business. Youssef Habbab, Eddie Moutran and I each flew back to our Gulf bases, while Guerrovich went for his painful meetings with Unilever and Lintas to announce the divorce.