Carlos Ghosn, CEO and president of Japan’s Nissan Motor Company Ltd. was greeted with a hero’s welcome at the International Advertising Association World Congress on Thursday, where he was named marketer of the year.
The Lebanese businessman told a packed auditorium at the Beirut International Exhibition and Leisure Center that marketing success is only possible through self-examination.
“The only battle you are sure to lose is the one you don’t face,” he told the crowd, composed largely of businessmen from the Arab world. “Every crisis is an opportunity as long as people’s motivation and empowerment are at the center of any strategic leadership.”
Born in Brazil to Lebanese parents, Ghosn has become a
business icon in the Arab world after initiating the campaign in the late 1990s that rescued Nissan from financial disaster. When Ghosn took over in 1999, the firm was crippled with a staggering $18 billion debt. His Nissan revival plan cut costs, developed market strategies and launched new products.
Under his guidance, Nissan posted $2.5 billion in operating profit and $3 billion in income after taxes the following year, a feat for which Time magazine named him Businessman of the Year.
After his speech, titled Relationships: Brand Building and Marketing Services, Ghosn spoke with delegates eager to apply his strategies to struggling economies in the Arab world, and Lebanon in particular.
While Ghosn refused to comment specifically on Lebanon, he drew a parallel with his experience in Japan, mentioning that one of the reasons for Nissan’s inflated coverage in the Japanese press is because the firm’s financial struggles mirror those of the Japanese economy.
“People say if these guys can recover from a near-death experience, then so can we,” he said.
Ghosn’s speech hit a chord among many Arab businessmen at the conference eager to embark on programs of self-evaluation and reform if that is what it will take to recover from debt.
Jean-Marie Dru, the president and CEO of TBWA Worldwide and the author of several books on marketing and advertising, followed Ghosn’s speech with his own appeal for reform in the advertising industry.
Referring to Tom Peter’s quote that “if you don’t create change, change will create you,” Dru observed that, since Sept. 11, “change has created us.”
Citing the issue of anti-globalization, he said anger toward large corporations was generated by companies’ reluctance to stand for something positive by forming communities.
According to Dru, brands should not separate people, but bring them together.
“Today people are striving to feel connected, especially when they are faced with critical uncertainties,” he said.
Dru, whose company is responsible for the success of Nissan’s new advertisements, said economic and political crises should not be feared but rather viewed as an opportunity.
“I really think that all major brands in the world will demonstrate a great deal of creativity over the next 10 years,” he said. “This has always been the case in times of major crisis.”
Former Industry, Economy and Trade Minister Nasser Saidi spoke on how Lebanon can once again be the portal to the Levant, Asia and even Europe. Emphasizing that the conference can be used as a platform to promote Lebanon, he urged foreign companies to invest in the country.
Saidi also gave his support to rebuilding Lebanon’s infrastructure, saying he envisions it as an “e-country, with e-government, e-banking, e-democracy, e-commerce and trade, and a Lebanon SchoolNet.”
For many delegates from the Arab world, the conference comes at a time when local companies are becoming increasingly aware that in a global economy, without global vision and marketing tools, they might get left behind.
Mishal al-Mandil, the marketing manager of Zajoul, a communications company in Saudi Arabia, said he came to the conference looking for ways to capitalize on his products.
“I want to know how I can develop a new brand,” he said, but that first and foremost, he wants to learn ways to “adapt.”
Kamal Dimachkie, the managing director of Leo Burnett in Dubai, also commented that the conference was above all a place for delegates to network, a process of increasing importance as companies go regional and global.
“Like many other things in this part of the world, the region is underdeveloped,” he said.
Citing the presence of industry greats among the speakers, he said that he hoped to learn from their success and to take away strategies to help clients open their eyes to larger issues and to change in response.
Despite the high caliber of speakers, the tendency was toward self-evaluation among delegates on Thursday.
The event is as much a business as a social affair, and many said that if Lebanon is serious about economic reform, then conferences here should concentrate less on politicians and gala dinners and more on projecting a corporate image.
Mohammed Alayya, a delegate from Jordan, said that while seeing his “business icons” speak was reason enough to attend the conference, the lack of dialogue reinforced some of the frustrations of regional businessmen.
“Sometimes I feel that the scene is only for the big players, that the rest of us come here and watch,” he said. “There has to be more interaction for participants to really make an impact.”
In addition, with most of this year’s delegates coming from the Arab world, the conference speeches have concentrated in large part on the Middle East. This has left other delegates from farther afield frustrated.
Je-Young Ko, a delegate from Korea, said that he feels excluded from discussions on relationships between East and West.
“The Lebanese are interested in relationships between the Middle East and the West, but if we come from East Asia, then that doesn’t concern us,” he said.
For most delegates, however, the three-day conference is as much about the business cards passed across the dinner table as it is about the speeches on the podium.
Mohammed Abdul-Amir, the managing director of an advertising and public relations company in Oman, said that at the end of the day, the conference was really about networking.
“Networking allows us to know what people are doing in other parts of the world,” he said. “There is the social side and there is the business side. They are equally important.”

Copyright © The Daily Star