Chapter 99\ Making the IAA a beauty parlor for Egos

During my early days at the IAA, I noticed that the leadership of this global organization was centered around high-level executives who worked for some of the world’s largest multinational advertising agencies, media entities and highest spending advertisers. People like Alex Brody, the CEO of Y&R, Archie (Tubby) Pitcher, CEO of Ogilvy & Mather, David Hanger, CEO of The Economist, Clay S. Timon, vice president of Colgate-Palmolive, and Roger Neil, CEO of Lowe Lintas Asia.

This is why I was one of many people who were greatly impressed by the breakthrough of Samir Fares on the international stage, particularly since he had achieved that breakthrough single-handedly. He had no global organization behind him that could help him through this uncharted territory and, sadly, I soon realized that very few of my Lebanese IAA colleagues believed Samir’s conquest was our collective conquest. Instead, the ugliest kind of jealousy manifested amongst the IAA’s heavily involved Lebanese, as well as some other Arabs.

What helped Samir reach this level was the international network he had groomed since his days as advertising manager at Al Hayat. His happy-go-lucky and charismatic nature, plus (to a lesser extent) the fact that he was the director of an agency network that pioneered regional operations in the Middle East and was an affiliate of Lintas, O&M, FCB, Univas and Hakuhodo, also played its part. That he passed away prematurely sadly seemed to be a relief for certain jealousy-ridden colleagues.

At that time, Intermarkets had begun to engage in affiliation dialogue with a new breed of global agencies, starting with Saatchi & Saatchi, then GGK, BDDP and TBWA. As I was at the forefront of these negotiations, I was surprised to notice that none of the other negotiators had a clue about the IAA. Most of the executives we met had never heard of the organization, and those who were familiar with it did not seem to be interested. Eager to drive Intermarkets forward, I arrived at the conclusion that the IAA was a matter for the past. From that moment on, observers could easily tell that the big boys of the advertising world – WPP, Omnicom, Publicis and others – lost interest in anything to do with the IAA. In fact, they considered it a waste of time and discouraged their people from joining.

The second observation was that the leadership of the IAA began to move from the US to mostly developing nations (Lebanon, Indonesia, Romania, India, and Ghana), with only two UK exceptions. After Samir Fares, the IAA had more Lebanese world presidents than any other nationality: Mustapha Assad, Jean-Claude Boulos, Joseph Ghossoub and Fares Abou Hamad. Lebanon had given four dynamic world presidents to the IAA, an organization that was established to:

– Become the global compass of the marketing communications industry

– Rise as an organization deeply rooted in its values of inspiring people to solve business and social challenges

– Advance the freedom of consumer choice

– Debate marketing communication issues and point out the proper path

– Educate practitioners to face the constant challenges with knowledge to help them better navigate outcomes

Instead, Lebanon gave the organization a leadership that re-focused the path of the IAA towards Europe and the Middle East when it felt that the American ad industry’s interest was no longer there. A leadership that made Lebanon the focus, even though – regretfully – it had no experience other than its own local market. A leadership that was meant to set standards in transparency and honesty while, sadly, fighting personal court cases and floating in rumors of wrongdoing and abuse.