ECONOMY: US Brands Get an Arab Face

By Cam McGrath Reprint | | Print |

Cam McGrath

CAIRO, Oct 23 2003 (IPS) - Mohammed Hashem used to growl that U.S. fast food outlets were stealing all his customers. Today his felafel stand is doing brisk business, while a nearby U.S.-style burger joint is almost empty.

"My customers want food that is cheap and tasty, but most of all they don’t want to feel guilty about what they eat," he says, removing greasy taamiya (felafel) balls from the fryer.

The guilt does not come from the calories. For many Egyptians, to buy U.S. products is to support among other things the Israeli government’s aggression against the Palestinian people.

Every penny spent on a U.S. food outlet kills a Palestinian child, says a flyer circulating on Egyptian university campuses. A grotesque image shows a Palestinian baby tucked between the bloodied buns of a sandwich. Blood drips from a bullet hole in his head.

Images like this have hurt U.S. trademarks. Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets for instance reported a 40 percent loss in sales last year at the height of a consumer boycott of U.S., British and Israeli companies.

Popular "committees" included its name on a blacklist of companies that consumers should avoid. Angry university students looted and torched some of the franchise outlets.

Yet Americana, the Kuwaiti-Egyptian company that owns all 64 Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets in Egypt, is 100 percent Arab owned and operated, the company’s public relations department says.

"We have tried to explain to people that our company has an American name but it is 100 percent Arab," says company spokesman Adel Fouad. "But there have been many accidents with students."

Americana is one of dozens of multinationals operating in Egypt that have sought to project their role in the community. Many have enlisted public relations specialists to tweak their image.

"The main thing that we advise our clients on, and our clients are interested in, is a localisation strategy," says Maha Aboulenein, managing director of Egypt’s Promoseven public relations firm. "It’s simply raising awareness that these are local companies, staff and shareholders."

These localisation strategies are tailored to the client’s needs, says Aboulenein. Companies often start from within, introducing employee training programmes to boost staff knowledge about relations with the U.S. parent company.

"It’s important that employees know the facts, because employees can serve as the best ambassadors for a company," she told IPS.

Clients may also be advised to increase the Arabic look of packaging, give their local staff more public exposure, or participate in "community-building investments" such as charities and local development projects.

Promoseven monitors the implementation and results, particularly after political events such as the Iraq war, which trigger waves of boycott calls and smear campaigns.

"We check the pulse on the street and address hot issues before they explode," says Aboulenein. "Sometimes we advise clients to respond, other times it’s better that they don’t."

Perhaps the biggest single threat to local franchises of U.S. trademarks is the rumour mill. Failing to adequately address rumours, no matter how absurd, can be fatal for a company.

The British supermarket chain Sainsbury’s was forced out of Egypt in 2001 after rumours spread that the company was Jewish-owned. Analysts believe the unfounded rumour was started by local corner store owners bitter about losing business to the rival giant.

"It doesn’t matter if the rumour is true or not because people here act on it," says sociologist Azza Korayyem. "Even if they discover it’s false, they still act as if they believe it."

Manfoods, which owns the local franchise for McDonald’s, saw sales plummet after rumours spread that the company was donating 10 percent of its revenues to Israel.

Sales recovered after the company responded with a local media campaign in which it said it was donating profits – but not to Israel. Since mid-2001, McDonald’s has contributed a portion of its profits to building Egypt’s first hospital for children with cancer.

Ariel laundry detergent was an easier target. Sales reportedly plunged 60 percent after boycott campaigners tenuously linked the name to Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, and claimed its logo resembled a Jewish Star of David.

Proctor & Gamble, which owns the Ariel trademark recently changed the six- pointed star logo to a less contentious four-pointed one. It also introduced a detergent with another name, Lang.

"We know and the consumers know that these are only rumours," says company spokesman Ziad Mourad. "We have been enjoying very strong consumer trust."

Not everyone is convinced. Ahmed Shaaban, founding member of the Egyptian Committee to Boycott Israeli, American and British Products refuses to drop any company associated with these countries off his blacklist.

"Some companies try to say that they are a national company and their products are locally made, and others with American names have changed their names," he says. "But the boycott is not about just the name, it is about the product itself. If it is American, we will boycott it."