Think Small

When I first joined our family agency, Inter-Régies, as a young ad professional, in 1993, I spent a lot of time observing the multinational networks that were setting up shop in Lebanon after the war. They arrived gradually but confidently, each one bringing global processes, global clients, and a global ambition that inevitably began reshaping the market.

One after another, they took market share and even some of our long-standing clients who were aligned with their international agencies. Soon, the advertising landscape in Lebanon looked like a perfectly drawn map of the world’s largest holding groups:

WPP: Team Young & Rubicam, TMI J. Walter Thompson, CSS & Grey, and Memac Ogilvy

Omnicom: Impact BBDO, Idées & Communications DDB, and later TBWA\Raad.

IPG: Fortune Promoseven (McCann), PIMO Lowe, and Horizon FCB.

Publicis: H&C Leo Burnett, Publicis-Graphics, and Saatchi & Saatchi BD&A.

Havas: Euro RSCG

I’ll admit it: back then, I was jealous. Envious even. These agencies had scale, swagger, and global credentials, things a local independent agency couldn’t match. Until the day we merged with Memac Ogilvy, when I finally felt part of that larger world I had long admired from the outside.

𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐠𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐞.

As the years passed, the holding groups began consolidating their regional networks. The iconic local names - H&C, Graphics, TMI, Team, CSS and many others - quietly disappeared as the multinationals took full ownership and enforced their global branding.

And then came a deeper, more surprising wave of consolidation: the disappearance of legendary global agencies themselves.

IPG network, JWT (established in…1864!), Y&R (1923!), Wunderman, more recently, DDB, arguably one of the industry’s most creative flag-bearers, FCB, and MullenLowe.

One major network and six agencies (to name but a few) gone from the global advertising scene. Names that built the foundations of modern advertising erased by mergers, restructurings, or strategic simplifications.

I started my career looking up at the giants.

Today, I’m watching some of those same giants vanish.

Our industry has always been about adaptation, reinvention, and staying ahead of change. But this moment feels different. We’re witnessing not just evolution but the end of an era, the rewriting of the very history that shaped us.

And perhaps the biggest lesson is this: 𝐈𝐧 𝐚𝐝𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞, 𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐜𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐝. 𝐎𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬.