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Introduction
Sitting comfortably in an armchair at Dubai airport, Mecca-Cola's founder, Taoufik Mathlouthi, looked around the crowded hall, toying with several contradictory thoughts. His watch said four o'clock in the evening, and he had already had a hectic day. Five hours earlier, he had stepped off the plane that had brought him from Bangladesh to meet Ali Sadik, his distributor for the Middle East. As in many other countries since the launch of this beverage company in October 2002, Mecca-Cola's sales in this region were soaring. However, although the meeting had been very positive, with Ali boasting about the growth of the new cola, Mathloulthi was cautious, wondering if this blessing would last forever.
His doubts had been awakened by the question raised by an English journalist some weeks earlier: "Is Mecca-Cola merely an ideological concept or has it started to make business sense?" For Mathlouthi, Mecca-Cola's expansion in 54 countries in less than two years was proof of the economic success of his idea. His worries lay in the future of the company: It was March 2005, and until now, the firm had been able to capitalize on a boycott movement against some US brands, associating them with perceived American imperialism and global capitalism. But Mathlouthi had asked himself thousands of times that night: What would happen to Mecca-Cola's sales if this movement faded out? What should he do to build a sustainable business? Should he stick to his provocative message or should he soften it to reach a broader audience on the long run? And how to do it without compromising the firm's mission?
With these and other questions spinning in his head, Mathlouthi walked towards his plane. Up to that moment, he had always looked for answers by himself; maybe it was time to ask for some advice. "Mariama, I am arriving at five," he said to his secretary on the phone. "Tell Matthieu, Haroun and Louiza to meet me at 5.30. Warn them it will be a long meeting"
Taoufik Mathlouthi
Born in 1956 in Kalaa El Kebira, a little village of Tunisia, Mathlouthi was the eldest son of a family of nine children. Mathlouthi's father, who combined his job as a teacher with his duties as the Imam[1] of...