Erwin Guerrovich can truly be called a decisive man. From a very early age when he ruled out first ambition to become a journalist in France, he began training himself to become a marketing professional.
At 43 he is president of Intermarkets, one of the largest agency groups in the area, with billing of $16 million last year. His decisiveness has taken Intermarkets from being an advertising department in a large import company back in the sixties, to the respected force in Middle Eastern advertising that it is today.
His business acumen has seen the company through its start as a fully fledged advertising agency, two merger deals and the expansion from the Lebanon which gave Intermarkets its strength following the conflict in Beirut.
Guerrovich himself feels that it is important not to discount luck in his personal success. "It is all a matter of luck in the end." he says, remembering the co-incidence of fortune which gave him a chance, at the age of 22 to run the advertising department of the Fattal trading company, which later formed the heart of Intermarkets.
But Guerrovich’s luck and power of decision have left him at time, as he admits. During the Arab Israeli war of 1967 he was offered the chance to buy his agency outright from the shareholder, as all the sign were that the Lebanon was to become involved with the war and business opportunities looked disastrous. He bid too low and as things rapidly improved, a golden opportunity was lost.
His expansion plans, conceived in the mid sixties have taken the agency into almost every market in the Arab world and clients and international agencies alike want his service.
The agency and Guerrovich still have unfulfilled plans for future markets and, meanwhile, multi-national agencies frequently make overtures with the intention of gaining equity in the operation.
When Erwin Guerrovich finished his Baccalaureate (a year early) his first thought was to become a journalist. His father had given him free choice to pursue his studies further, to enter the profession or to take on something more practical. As Guerrovich investigated the possibilities for a journalist he found that he would spend too much time for his liking working for others to get the glory. He says: "I would have liked to have been a journalist and later a writer, but as a Lebanese, my mother tongue was French and in France I would be a foreigner. It looked a depressing prospect to be an esclave under the hand of a big newspaper man. So I turned to advertising, which appeared to be the closest field to journalism.
"It was interesting because it offered variety, an intellectual challenge and no administrative security."
And Guerrovich single-mindedly applied himself, first to learning the English language and later marketing technique, under the advice and guidance of his father.
He came to London and for nine months studied English. He was fully exposed to the English milieu, staying in place like East Horsley in Surrey's commuter belt and Colliers Wood in South London. He remembers with a smile that it was at the lime of the "teddy boy" phenomenon in England.
Quick tour
After a grounding in the language his father's contacts took him to spend time in such diverse companies as Gillette, Unilever, Squibb and Prudential Insurance.
Guerrovich is quick to make it clear that he was no "visitor" who just did a quick tour of the factory to find out what was going on, but spent month working at each company. His fondest memories are those of selling as part of the London sales team for Gillette, both in the Dockland and in the West End of London.
His training lasted three years in all, before he returned to Beirut and joined the Fattal distribution company, where his father was managing director.
At first he was assistant to the man in charge of pharmaceutical promotions to clinics, hospitals and doctors, but he soon moved to become assistant to the mainstream advertising manager. Says Guerrovich: "It was the line I was following and I insisted on joining the advertising department.
Guerrovich says his first piece of luck came when the ad manager went on a course to France and, after a battle with his superiors, he was left in charge of the department, as he puts it "without the title and without the money, of course". When the ad manager returned he moved up to senior management and left Guerrovich confirmed in the ad manager job - at the age of 22.
And he says that his second piece of luck came when the large Lebanese advertising agencies decided to cut out companies dealing directly with media by forming an advertising association. This they did and Guerrovich went to the Fattal board, for the setting up of a house advertising agency to replace the sales department. "I did not have to give reasons for the set up of on agency in principle, but I had to argue over how much freedom they would provide".
And so in July 1961, Middle East Marketing and Advertising Services was born. "A very long and complicated name" agrees Guerrovich, but notes that his say in such matters was very small at the time.
The agency began getting business from international agencies straight away, but a number of the agencies which came to see MEMAS criticised the size and scope of the operation - which was literally three people at the time.
"This helped me a great deal with what had become my shareholders", say Guerrovich. Arguing for a larger set-up, MEMAS bought a small ad agency which was in financial trouble through disagreements between the partners.
This formed the nucleus of the organisation later to become Intermarkets and from 1962 to 1964 Guerrovich says the agency went through "fascinating years" with new business coming from Unilever, in the shape of Vim and Omo, Pan Am and Rothmans.
It was at this time too that Guerrovich made another of those decisions which worked. He explains it thus: "While a lot of agencies were, I would not say media brokers, but perhaps media 'connoisseurs', we became much more involved on the marketing side, getting very much involved in the clients operation. This created our reputation."
In the beginning MEMAS took any work it could get and the business was split 50/50 between international and local clients, but as time went on the agency became more selective until by 1965 nearly 80 per cent of the billings came from outside the Lebanon. And then came the Arab-Israeli war in 1967.
"The first day of the war we were in the full swing of business at nine in the morning and then we started receiving telexes and call saying 'stop the campaign'."
By midday virtually all the agency was at a standstill says Guerrovich, and the shareholder decided to close down the operation for the duration of the war.
It was then that Guerrovich made his unsuccessfully low bid for the agency. "If I had offered the right price - a reasonable price - the deal would have been clinched then. But it was perhaps my inexperience. If I wanted to offer an extenuating circumstance I could say that the price was based on how much I could borrow from my friends".
After a few days the gloomy things predicted for the Lebanon did not happen, but the shareholders did offer Guerrovich a 25 per cent equity stake in the operation.
But already Guerrovich was thinking about the greater market potential of the Middle East. "It was becoming clear, he says, "without being a prophet, that nationalism would eventually mean larger income sooner or later. And as the region has always been a troubled one, on the principle of not having all your eggs in one basket, the more the agency was spread the better able it was to face adversity. But when all these plans were laid down. I never expected so much truth could come out of the thinking."
New company
And Guerrovich traces the decision to go into other markets back to a board meeting in 1965 when the plans were laid, but to execute the expansion plan the company needed a stronger base in the Lebanon from which to begin. And it was then that the link with Hima took place, forming Intermarkets as the new company.
As the first part of the expansion the Kuwait office was a locally registered, full service agency from the word go. Bahrain followed soon after, as a good servicing point for business in Saudi Arabia. By now things looked rosy for Intermarkets, as the revenue from the oil boom was translated into consumer spending power, just as Guerrovich had predicted.
In 1975 the Lebanon was again engulfed in violence, which paralysed business in what had been the advertising and media capital of the area.
But Intermarkets' policy of diversification meant that they could continue working without interruption.
"In comparison with the competition, we were the only ad agency which had continuity of communication with our clients.
"For the others it was a problem of logistics - entry visa, resident and work permits. As we were entrenched in the area we had none of these problems.
"The staff had a desk and a phone to go to - in fact everything they wanted". Guerrovich remembers that he learnt a lot at that time about the people with whom he worked. He says: "When you come to crisis situations you find the people who can stand changing conditions and who have loyalty to the company. The good ones stayed and the mediocre ones went".
The Dubai agency finally came about in 1976, followed a year later with an Egyptian office to handle international business. And in 1978, with the opening of the Saudi office Intermarkets could claim to be represented with a full service presence in most of the major markets of the Middle East.
But Guerrovich didn't stop there. Realising the importance of the PR function in communications he signed a deal with the Burson Marsteller organisation to form a joint PR company. And Guerrovich has other plans too. He says that Oman in the lower Gulf has a great future.
As president of such a large and diversified organisation there is no way that Guerrovich could be involved in the day-to-day decisions of all the offices, but he wants it that way. He says: "I do not believe in a one-man operation, I have seen companies in this (the Beirut) market which have been relying on one man then the man falls sick or dies and you see in a matter of months the company would not even exist. My policy is that Intermarkets must have a number of key men. And whoever is at the top, the company must not suffer if he changes. The continuity must be there."
Guerrovich is a confirmed believer in the power of a strong organisation too. "Maybe this is what I have learned in my training period and my time in a large organisation. Forget about the number of people, start making an organisation first and then, as you grow everything becomes easier."
Guerrovich tells another story which illustrates how aware he is of his role in the company. When visiting Europe recently, he says: "I met the managers, advertising, marketing, sales etc of a large manufacturing company. They were all in their thirties and they had all sorts of marketing plans for the future - it was a really exciting meeting, I was carried away by their enthusiasm. Then they introduced me to the president of the company and I saw all their enthusiasm deflating.
"I would hate to look at myself and see that man. I would hate to hold up progress just because I was the majority shareholder.
"I believe that life is a struggle and because it is a struggle it is also a game. If things are running too smoothly there is no challenge to feel you are fighting and winning. So there must be this struggle - it is possessed of everything that makes professional life interesting.
"And so it is my philosophy that I would never have a majority share in the company, because it is against my principle of struggle."
Intermarkets is a very valuable property nowadays, with more than one international agency making overtures. But Guerrovich is fairly firm on the pre-conditions for his recommendation to the shareholders that a deal should go through.
The deal with Lintas which went sour has obviously chastened Guerrovich.
Lintas was to gain 20 per cent of the equity after a two-year trial period. Guerrovich says: "The result of this experience makes us even more negative", but he does not entirely rule out some kind of "evolution".
"A huge sum of money is not enough, for let us not forget that Intermarkets is already working with international agencies from America to Japan. For a start there must be compensation for a large billing that we would lose - and that applies to whatever billing would come in the future too."
(Campaign Mid East)
