From a film director to CCO at Leo Burnett MENA: An interview with Bechara Mouzannar, Film Lotus + Radio Lotus jury head at AdFest

The Promo Lotus and Effective Lotus juries at AdFest 2015 will be chaired by Bechara Mouzannar, CCO, Leo Burnett MENA.

Mouzannar leads 16 Leo Burnett offices across the Middle East and North Africa – a challenge exacerbated by the complexity and volatility of the Arab world.

Mouzannar was a director before joining Leo Burnett Beirut in the early 1990s. In this interview, he elaborates on the toughest challenges he faces as a CCO…

What are the biggest challenges you face as Leo Burnett’s CCO for MENA?

The first challenge for the CCO of a global agency in the Middle East & North Africa is the instability of the whole region – whether it stems from political, military or economical factors – which constantly puts at risk our ability to retain great talents and our capacity to deliver on our business objectives, as per our plan.

The second challenge is the complexity of the Arab world: its versatility as a region, its different colloquial Arabic languages and its very different societies and insights. This leads to different codes and styles of communication in our campaigns and to different ways to engage with the target audience depending on the countries where we communicate. Now, this is the interesting part.

The less rewarding one is when you have to deal on a daily basis with huge discrepancies and gaps on the level of creative excellence, within the same region.

The third challenge is the number of agencies that I am supposed to inspire and support by my regular presence: 16 offices in the region, but since ubiquity is sometimes hard to achieve, I can’t travel everywhere all the time.

Last but not least, the resistance of the communications industry in MENA to truly embrace change, to truly innovate in the social media and to effectively integrate ideas also leads to less competitiveness among agencies, in terms of innovation, and to keeping the young creative talents in lots of agencies busy putting their best efforts on scam ads instead of making a real difference on their regular clients’ briefs.

You once worked as a film director … what did you learn about storytelling from shooting more than 100 commercials in three years?

I learnt lots of things about storytelling in communication from my experience as a director, and I kept on applying that learning in my campaigns when I decided to come back to my original passion, the Idea.

I also learnt a million interesting things about Life, about crafting and about inspiring and leading a team.

Storytelling is a discipline, a mindset, and a skill, before being an art. It only becomes an art after years and years of experimenting and telling stories, when you realize that storytelling is an evolving art that cannot be framed as a dogma, but that you should be able to re-invent every day.

I recently came back to direction, for a little while. I have just shot a short movie in Brazil, which is inspired from a real story that happened to me there a few years ago.

You believe in a “humanly insightful” and “genuinely local” approach … what makes this such a winning formula?

The power of local fresh truthful insight versus universal cliché does not need more explanation. This is when you root a genuine and engaging conversation with the people from your country. This is what gives you a ‘voice’ as one of the successful nations in communication.

You’ve helped Leo Burnett win more than 500 awards over the past few years. But which award means most to you?

Our first Lion – a Gold Lion – in Cannes, in 2009 for the Hariri Foundation’s women empowerment campaign in Lebanon – ‘Khede Kasra‘. It was the first campaign in Arabic to ever win a Lion, the first Lion for an ad agency from Lebanon, as well as the first integrated campaign from the MENA region to win in Cannes.

Who is the most interesting person you’ve ever had lunch with?

An extra-terrestrial, who prefers to remain anonymous.

What scares you?

Stupidity, fundamentalism (which is almost the same thing) and indecision.

If you could invite any three people to a dinner party, who would they be?

I would invite the women who have counted in my life, all together, around the same dining table.

Best film or book you’ve seen or watched lately?

A starry night, 2000 metres up the Lebanese snowy mountains.