Walking the line

Anil Bhoyrul meets Gulf media tycoon, Elie Khouri, and asks him what the future holds for the Gulf's advertising industry.

Elie Khouri is in a good mood. The regional managing director of Omnicom Media Group (OMG) has just stepped off a plane from Las Vegas, and is showing off the very fancy new coffee machine in his office.

"I'm enjoying my life. I don't see myself as a hands on guy. I leave it to the directors and managers to perform their job. I'm just somebody who makes sure we are all going in the same direction," he says.

Whatever it is Khouri does, it is certainly working. OMG, both globally and regionally, has had another outstanding year, picking up yet another string of awards. The media and marketing giant is the biggest, and by many measures, also the best.

The New York based holding company last year saw revenues hit the US$12.7bn mark, with first quarter figures for 2008 already showing a 14% rise to US$208.7m. Its Dubai office has led the Middle East charge, with prestigious accounts including the consolidated businesses of the Dubai government.

Khouri himself has been in the top 50 of the Arabian Business Power List for the last two years running, and as the market keeps on growing, so does OMG. It's a big responsibility, but for Khouri, just part of the job. "Do I get scared handling such big accounts?

I don't get scared because when you are convinced of something it becomes fun to do it. Yes there is pressure but I thrive on the pressure. Without the pressure I get bored," he says.

There is no danger of that in the near future, with advertising spend in the UAE alone rising from US$869 million in 2005 to US$1.3bn last year, according to a report by the Pan Arab Research Centre.

But the bigger the spend, the bigger the players - and the bigger the problems. Last month, Saatchi & Saatchi's global CEO Kevin Roberts made a flying visit to Dubai to promote his new book The Lovemarks Effect: Winning in the Consumer Revolution.

Moments after arriving back from his trip he stunned the local industry by launching a blistering attack on its standards in CEO Middle East last month.

Roberts claimed creative agencies in the region "had failed to embrace modern technology and were producing work that looked as though it had been made in 1995. I think it's cr**, absolute cr**.

They haven't embraced the internet or mobile technology and they are producing work that on the whole looks like it has come from 1995. It's just so disappointing."

Roberts singled out real estate advertising as being of a particularly poor standard, saying: "Just look at all the money that is spent on real estate. And then look at all the work and it all just looks the same.

You've got to be kidding me. It just cracks me up. I think everybody is frightened to death. They are frightened of clients, of bureaucracy, of risks, they are frightened socially, they are frightened of offending people and they are frightened of the diverse nature of the population."

Khouri isn't impressed. Most of what he says isn't printable. Although stressing that Roberts is purely in the advertising business, he says: "What I didn't appreciate was the tone of his message when he came to Dubai.

I may agree with the content of what he said, but it's a bit aggressive for the sake of being aggressive. If you have comments, fine you can put them across in a constructive way.

The industry still has a long way to go in creativity but big efforts are being made. The latest Lynx award is proof of that. The ultimate benchmark of creativity is Cannes and we won awards there," says Khouri.

He adds: "You have to focus on what matters most and that is ideas - we focus on innovation and driving the culture of creativity. That's what we think sets us apart."

The challenge for Khouri and his team in the year ahead is dealing with the massive and continuing increase in work, especially in the UAE. Of last year's US$1.3bn advertising spend, 16% was on television, 13% on magazines, 2% on radio commercials and 1% on cinema adverts.