Raja Trad joined Leo Burnett in 1981 as an account director, and in the decades since, he’s become one of the Middle East ad scene’s most recognizable faces. It took him a lucky 13 years to rise to the top of the Chicago-based agency’s Middle East arm, taking over as CEO in 1994. Given the current demands of the marketplace, one suspects the next rising star might make the ascent even quicker.

It’s been a frenzied three years for Leo Burnett in the region: The agency doubled in size between 2004 and 2006. Trad says the main challenge the industry faces now is finding and retaining talent, and to cope with this, the agency has started identifying quick learners and putting them on a faster promotion track.

Communicate caught up with Trad recently at Leo Burnett’s Dubai Media City headquarters. Although wary of making forecasts in a region where things are anything but predictable, Trad offered a few observations and opinions on the shape of things to come.

Communicate: It’s awards season. By the time this interview is published, the first Dubai Lynx advertising awards will have come and gone. This comes right on the heels of the MENA Cristal in Lebanon, and right after the planned – but cancelled – Campaign awards. Do you think there are too many advertising awards festivals for the Middle East?

Raja Trad: I don’t think the market can afford three or four awards. Let me tell you why: I don’t think we have enough material coming from all the advertising agencies to be judged on a yearly basis. This is number one. Number two: It’s time consuming and costly for advertising agencies. If we have one or two credible ones, in my opinion, it’s enough.

Communicate: Do awards offer a good return on investment?

Raja Trad: No, I don’t think so. I don’t agree with those agencies that believe it takes an award to pick up new business on the marketplace. It can add value, it can add glamour – and we are an industry that really does require some glamour – but at the end of the day what counts is our clients.

There are clients to whom you can go and say, ‘We have won awards,’ and they say, ‘I do not want to win awards, I want to win on the marketplace.’

In helps in improving creativity, however. When you put all the agencies in competition, it pushes them to improve their standards so they can compete in global events. I’ll tell you one thing: Five years ago we didn’t have entries in Cannes from the Middle East. In the last three or four years we have had winners.

Communicate: So what has changed? What led to the region’s improved creativity?

Raja Trad: What changes is that you’re not talking anymore just about the Middle East. When we talk about the global village, it’s not just talk: You have multinational clients that work with Leo Burnett in Chicago and London, and when they come to work with you in the Middle East, they expect you to give the same quality product.

Communicate: Do you think ad agencies and media agencies should be paid according to the efficiency of their campaigns?

Raja Trad: [The right payment plan] is a combination. At the end of the day, ad agencies are responsible for one part of the mix in marketing. They are not responsible for the product and they are not responsible for the distribution. I’m not responsible for identifying dealers in different markets. I’m responsible for one part of the mix. So to come and tell me I will only pay you if you deliver – no.

There are some clients that have done a wonderful formula. They said: We are going to pay you the fees for the services you’re offering, and if at the end of the year you overdeliver – and we agree on the objective, for example, they say they would really like to hit 10 percent growth next year – then there is what they call a bonus point in fees. We give you one extra point, two extra points, depending on your overdelivery.

This I understand and respect, but I cannot be the sole one responsible.

Communicate: What are you doing to address the talent crunch at agencies?

Raja Trad: Today, the competition for talent is not only between advertising agencies. It’s between all the new companies, from government to semi-government to new industries that came into town.

We did something new in the agency. In the past, we used to say, for example, that if you spend three years with the agency, you’re qualified to become an account manager. After five years, you’ll become an account director. Today we say: No, there are the fast learners, the fast-trackers, the rising stars. Let them move, and if they are able to prove to me that they can become account directors in three years rather than five, I’m not going to stop you because somebody else is slower than you. So we changed the model.

Communicate: What about finding local talent in the Gulf?

Raja Trad: Let me start with the most difficult market, which is Saudi Arabia. We started the operation in Saudi Arabic in 1979. Saudi Arabia is always saying, “We can’t find local talent, local talent is not interested,” et cetera.

Now there are some economic realities in Saudi Arabia, where people realize they have to find a job and they have to build a career. So the mindset has changed. Today in Saudi Arabia, for the first time since 1979, 25 percent of our total talent is Saudi national.

It takes two to tango. It’s not only you approaching the market. It’s the talent approaching the industry to start with.

Communicate: In ten years, what will the industry look like? Will ad agencies still be ad agencies, or will they become extensions of the media buying units?

Raja Trad: No, I don’t think they will become extensions of the MBUs. This is a very personal point of view and it’s not based on research or data, but based on observation: I think you will have more and more clients that will ask for reintegration. I think that ad agencies and media companies, in my opinion, are drifting apart. If we go back to the era where they were more integrated, it was more helpful to the client than what is happening today. I’m not saying they will go back and become one, but they have to reintegrate in one way or another.

Communicate: In the UAE, marketers often have problems communicating to the many different nationalities in the country. You solved this problem with your ad for GMC’s Yukon by showing the car completely out of its environment – with no humans.

Raja Trad: Yes, absolutely. That’s why it created an impact on the marketplace. It connected with everyone without showing the “happy family.” Whenever you talk about food, for example, some of the clients will come and say, “I want to see a happy family at the breakfast table!” But there is more than one way to skin a cat.

Communicate: In the ads you have developed for Du, the UAE’s second telecom operator which launched this year, there hasn’t been much to distinguish the company from the dominant operator, Etisalat. Both marketing campaigns seem quite similar.

Raja Trad: It’s a bit early. You have not seen anything yet. All I want to say is: Wait and see.