Our vision is to be & be recognized as the first and best corporate storytellers globally, inspiring impactful value to our people, partners, and communities.
In 1996, Tamer Mustafa -the founder of outofzbox- was still a young Brand Manager in Americana Foods, with dreams of eventually landing a job at a multinational, or getting into the diplomatic field like his father. One day he was approached by two friends to help them start an advertising agency. And despite the fact private business was far from his interests, yet every day after 18:00 he would leave his initial workplace and go to that newly formed company to help out in the thinking, and building of this venture.
Until an old colleague called him for a potential project with Procter & Gamble. This months-old company has the chance to work with one of the most reputable clients in the world. So he met with an Associate Brand Manager for Camay soap (it was still a P&G brand at the time) listening to a brief on an in-store visibility project which was to Tamer like rocket science at the time. Yet, the nonstop thinking and immense work put behind it, made his efforts pay-out, and the project was his; the very first project with a multinational client.
The invoice was of a ridiculous $20, and Tamer had to deliver the material himself on his birthday night as he couldn’t afford to hire someone to do the job in his place. But all this was done with a lot of passion and pride. This small job built the self confidence needed & was the cornerstone in Tamer’s decision to totally retire from the corporate life, and to focus on this private business with obvious potential. He resigned from his job just 48 hours prior to his engagement party to his high school sweetheart.
One thing led to another, and the $20 invoice kept on increasing with more and more zeros being added to the right, and with many falls, and lessons along the way, the business kept growing domestically in Egypt, across the region, and globally with an impeccable success record, and world class equity with bigger and bigger clients.
This was all possible because ozb was not built as a company, but rather a passionate mission; a mission to continuously inspire. Inspire oneself, inspire those around and inspire clients while making -well deserved- earnings in the process.
The spark that ignited the journey to build a business amidst some very challenging times. Three friends starting an advertising agency with very few low profile clients. One day, light emerged at the end of the tunnel, a major multinational client demonstrated interest in working with the agency, and as small as the project’s scope was, as big its success proved to be. This was the real beginning of hope.
In that same year we were invited by P&G to participate at an official contest among five already established agencies including multinational brand agencies to compete on design work, and we were awarded the sole qualified design agency for P&G Egypt ever.
Total mindset shift where Tamer Mustafa asked some key questions: “what value added are we really creating for our clients? What change are we bringing to life? What are we leaving behind? What is it that makes us proud beyond just making more money? What will be our legacy?”
The answers to those questions did not lie in the old structure any longer, and the old mentality, but rather in the founder’s beliefs, values, and most importantly in his passion; that is why he decided to start a new division focused mainly on selling communication ideas. A new company “out of the box” was born with a hope of one day issuing an invoice with the word “inspiration” and a large number beside it. Today, this is a common daily practice. We were awarded the International Advertising Association’s highest honors, the Rameh Golden Award for the best design in Egypt for the year 1999.
The agency grew an impeccable equity domestically that eventually hallowed regionally, and that is when out of the box’s first project beyond Egypt was conceived.
A regional event for a multinational giant was lead in Dubai with the utmost success. 200 people over three days full of learning, fun, and a lot of engagement. This project -which is now over 15 years old- still has a very active online social engagement among the audience as a result of the impact created then. This marked the beginning of the agency’s projects regionally.
