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High profile: confectioners Nestle are one of Euro RSCG’s biggest clients.

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Giant client: Exxon Mobil has been a Euro RSCG client for many years.

Corporate communications agencies in the Gulf have been enjoying something of a boom recently. Though not an industry sector traditionally associated with the more opaque business customs of the Middle East, the benefits of projecting a deliberate and positive image are being realised. Now, as with many sectors of the budding Middle Eastern economy, related businesses are reporting impressive growth rates, among them Euro RSCG.

The French company (though headquartered in New York) formed in 1992 by a merger between Euro Com, an advertising company formed by Havas and RSCG, an innovative advertising agency formed by the respected Seguela, campaign advisor for President Francois Mitterrand amongst other things. Havas is the sixth largest advertising and communications group in the world and has retained Euro RSCG under its umbrella organisation. The bonding of these two companies has put Euro RSCG in a strong position, with an enviable web of office locations and connections (including historical associations with the Agence France-Presse) as well as a robust creative heritage. The organisation has a worldwide presence in 75 countries with over 200 offices, most recently opening up an office in Dubai Media City to act as a base for Middle Eastern operations.

Though perhaps not a household name, the work of Euro RSCG is well-known. It has been responsible for popular advertising campaigns such as the Citroen advert where the car transforms into a dancing robot as well as counting companies such as Airbus, Volvo, Exxon Mobil, Nestle, L'Oréal and Reckitt Benckhiser among their customers. Winning these lucrative, worldwide contracts has been something of a change from the early days of advertising where 75% of international brands were US-owned. It has taken some years for non-American companies to break into the US-dominated industry. Executive Director, Stéphane Fouks identifies this as an advantage for Euro RSCG in the long run: "Our different agencies were obliged to be very entrepreneurial because they alone had to develop their own local business." This entrepreneurial spirit stands in their favour to this day, fostering the history of innovation that keeps the company at the forefront of the field.

Successful corporate communications is about strengthening the brand using a combination of selected media channels. The international reach of many brands these days means that the most successful campaigns are tailored to account for the cultural relativism that they will encounter in different countries and regions. Euro RSCG's specific strategy for countering this relativism has been to call on their network of agencies worldwide to cooperate internationally on client contracts at the same time working locally with the specific regional nuances. A double-faceted approach allows Euro RSCG to apply best international business practices to focused creative campaigns.

According to Fouks, the hub-to-hub arrangement is the optimum means of ensuring publicity is targeted at the right audience to maximise the efficacy of client campaigns. It is archaic to follow the old formula, "where you decide everything in one place and then duplicate the decision everywhere else," he explains. Recognising the multicultural subtleties, the network of individual creative agencies Euro RSCG has on the ground means they can each understand precisely how each region works.

In the Gulf, for example, the goal is to develop elements of Arabic arts and culture to give some specifics to business communications. In doing so, Fouks believes that the campaigns, "speak more deeply to the hearts, to the emotions of people," thus ensuring that they can better relate to (and ultimately purchase) the products and services on offer. To ensure that they retain the expert regional knowledge (the key benefit of the hub arrangement), Euro RSCG divides the time of each team roughly 50-50 between local projects and international collaborations. This division keeps the equilibrium between global and regional awareness to maximise the efficiency of the strategy.

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