MAMUN M. ADIL: Tell us a little about your advertising background.

HIRA MOHIBULLAH: I started as a copywriter at Adcom Leo Burnett. I then moved to Lahore, where I worked at Soho Square, followed by Ogilvy Pakistan and BBDO Pakistan. I stayed at BBDO for six years; it was my longest stint at an agency. After that, I moved to the US, where I worked at VMLY&R. I returned to Pakistan due to family reasons; my husband was still living here and I did not feel that the work I was doing in the US was worth splitting our family.

DANIAH ISHTIAQ: Advertising was not my first calling. After my MBA, I worked as a sales analyst and realised this was not what I wanted to do. So I then interned at Ogilvy Pakistan and they offered me a planning position, which I accepted. I then worked at IAL Saatchi & Saatchi, Lowe and Ogilvy again when I moved to Lahore and finally at BBDO, where I met Hira.

MMA: Why did you establish ‘And The Nerve!’ given the risky economic climate?

DI: I needed a break. Agency sizes are shrinking and with them, planning departments. As a result, I have been a planning director without a team for several years. For me, it was about growth, as I was not learning anything new.

HM: My reason was culture-driven. You produce your best work when you are in a healthy state of mind. Working in advertising can create a lot of unhealthy work practices, and although people call this the nature of the work, I don’t agree with this. I know it does not need to be like that; I have been fortunate to work at very utopian places such as Ogilvy and BBDO. However, when it comes to bigger agencies, we are merely cogs in the system. So, when I couldn’t change the system, I decided to become the system; that was my motivator. We wanted to create a great work culture. In this regard, it is important to say that Daniah and I come from privileged households that financially support us, so questions arising from delayed payments are not as big a problem as they could have been.

MMA: What is your business model?

DI: We call it a project-based ‘plug and play model’, as we only take work on a project basis. Hira and I are the only faces clients see. I lead strategy and Hira leads creative. The rest of the team are freelancers. We hire the right person for the right job. This is one of the aspects that differentiates us from most agencies.

MMA: Why the name ‘And The Nerve!’?

DI: While I was working at other agencies, I dealt with a lot of account management teams who prevented me from being blunt or honest with clients, and I struggled with that. For me, the guts to say something requires nerve, which our agency has. The name also has to do with the fact that we had the nerve to create our own agency – two women who are mums and who had the nerve to take a leap of faith. It also has to do with our clients. They have the nerve to believe in us.

MMA: Has securing clients been a challenge?

DI: Due to our agency background, a lot of clients came to us themselves, although we have also been proactively reaching out to secure new business. Although none of our projects have been released yet, people are aware of the work we have done in the past and they are prepared to trust us with their brands. We are currently working on projects for Outfitters, Always, Head & Shoulders, and a pro-bono project for the Centre for Human Rights (CFHR). Our work for these clients will be out later this year. Our projects for Outfitters and CFHR are 360 campaigns and those for Always and Head & Shoulders are digital-first. The most compelling thing about the Always project was the fact that they put their money where their mouth was; they listened to consumer feedback and changed the formulation of their product, which is incredibly rare.

HM: Our objective was to launch a new and improved Always. The campaign was a joint effort. Adcom worked on the ATL and we worked on the digital trial campaign. However, the digital trial campaign was not an offshoot of the ATL work and was crafted keeping the digital dynamic in mind. We came up with the tagline ‘Shh Nahin Share’ urging women to stop being silent about their periods. The bifurcation between ATL and digital happened because digital was the right medium to test the waters to see how ready Pakistani consumers were to have these conversations.

MMA: As an agency, you pride yourselves on providing “highly strategic creative.” What does this translate to?

HM: I have always believed that creativity is a science and there is always a strategic method to the madness we call creativity. I have been scoffed at for this notion because not everyone believes it. When Daniah and I are working together, there is an organic flow from strategy to creative – and that is what “highly strategic creative” is – creativity that comes with strategy. Sometimes creatives and strategists do not agree with each other, but what works for us is that we believe in the power of what the other one is proposing. We provide creative solutions backed by data, science and research. Our creative work is tangible and that is our USP. We define ourselves as an ad shop or boutique agency that is in the business of strategic defiance.

DI: Many agencies view strategy and creative as two separate entities, and very often clients see through this in the sense that they realise the strategy has been done just for the sake of it, while creative takes the lead. Creative is important, but it needs to be based on facts and should address a pain point and provide a solution – and that is always missing if the strategy is not there.

MMA: What sorts of risks can you take that you could not when working at larger agencies?

DI: Surprisingly, many people think that a bigger agency has more power. In my view, as a smaller agency, we have the power to say no and pick and choose the clients we want to work with without having to go through layers of decision-making. g

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