“We are not a tick mark agency”

First published in Aurora’s January-February 2005 edition.

AURORA: What brought you to advertising?
FARAZ MAQSOOD HAMIDI: We all run into advertising. We don’t think, “Ah, advertising!” Everybody in my family is a banker, but I knew I couldn’t go to work in a suit and that I needed to find alternatives. So I did all kinds of things. I did art school; I did comparative literature at Sorbonne; I did international relations and then business administration (everybody in the eighties did business administration!). I did all that and I was very good, except that I was bored out of my mind. Then in 1989, while studying in Paris, I hit upon the Communication School in Boston. I went to this place called the ‘Ad Lab’, which apparently was the largest student-run agency in New England. And here was this 23-year-old supervisor who says, “If you are someone who enjoys coming up with slogans and writing, you are probably going to be a copywriter and if you enjoy doodling, maybe you’ll be an art director,” and I felt, “Yes, that’s me; that’s my career,” and everything fell into place.

A: It sounds like love at first sight?
FMH: It was and it always is. Every day. I completely inhaled advertising. It gives me an opportunity to be myself; I never thought this would be possible. I’m thankful I discovered advertising. I did a lot of odd things – literature, music, theatre – but the question was: Where do you focus your imagination? I knew it had to be something in the creative arts. And there it was, and it was an amazing discovery.

A: Boredom hasn’t set in yet?
FMH: No, not at all!

A: What was it like coming back to Pakistan and setting up an agency?
FMH: Here was somebody who had never been exposed to the environment in Pakistan, and invariably when you are an expat, you tend to have a rosy picture, an image of this lovely country that is a paradise. When I graduated, I was briefly at an agency called Hill Holliday, and I knew I could do this (advertising) in that environment. But I had no idea about this (Pakistan) environment; it’s a ridiculously challenging environment for all the wrong reasons. But I knew I had to go into advertising and that I would invariably do it in Pakistan because that’s where you can make a difference. If I were to do it in the States, I would just be one of 3,000 people making a very good difference, but then I wouldn’t be able to get that kick. I was 23 years old when I decided to open my own agency, and the only reason I could do that was because I ran into an individual, who is my business partner to this day (Adil Mirza), and who understood the system. So that has been a very interesting marriage of disciplines and the only reason why I can do it. I don’t know if I would be able to do it independently.

A: So in a sense you have insulated yourself?
FMH: Completely. That’s what keeps me alive, keeps me going.

A: How long did you live abroad?
FMH: Twenty-two years, although I was born in Pakistan. My dad was a banker, and every winter we would come back. It was one of those things.

A: What was it like coming back?
FMH: When I came back, to be honest, I thought it would be for a couple of years. Get to know the country; understand the culture. I joined IAL and I remember being put on the PIA account. It was a nice place to be because you got the huge exposure that PIA offers. When I walked into IAL, I noticed that there was so much fear. Fear of the client, of doing great work, of taking a big decision. Now I understand why there was fear. There was fear because there was mediocrity. Our greatest challenge was mediocrity. People were just not open. Okay, it was a different time then. But I knew I had to move on, because if I didn’t, I would become like some of the creatives I saw around me. They would say “mera itnay saal ka experience hai.” But that doesn’t count; you’re only as good as your last ad. I knew I needed to take that step to keep my mind fresh, and having done so is the reason why I’m so relaxed now. I love The D’Hamidi Partnership. I love doing what I do. I love being able to contribute. And we have contributed well.

A: In what way?
FMH: At a time when everybody was being safe, here were two individuals who were prepared to be different. That was how we won the Schon Bank account, which was our first account. We waited for this opportunity, and there were about a zillion agencies pitching with scores of storyboards. And we came in with this one ad; it was rejected and we were told to come again the next day. So we did – with the same ad – and the same thing happened for five consecutive days; we kept going in with the same ad. As far as we were concerned, this was the ad that had to go.

A: Did they not think you were rather thick?
FMH: They thought we were absolutely perverted. They took it eventually; they must have figured there had to be something right about it. Mind you, all the big guns were there. We learnt from that experience that we were very comfortable taking risks; that we had courage. It’s worth mentioning here that at that time (1993/1994), Masood Hashmi was the only individual to offer to release our ads.

A: Courage is important to you?
FMH: Bravery is contagious; the opposite of that would be conformity. When you are happy, when you are confident, you get that into your system and that is how a culture evolves. In our agency, everyone from our computer operators up are confident people. Young men and women who want to go out and make a difference, and thank God for that. As an agency, we do not go out and pitch for clients. We don’t do that because, then, you are the individual standing in line, and the dictating of terms comes from the other side

A: Isn’t that a rather arrogant attitude?
FMH: I don’t think it is arrogance; you’re just guarding your integrity. Because, honestly, you want to go out and give good work, and there is nothing arrogant about that. In fact, that’s real service; you want to do this work, you want to make a difference and when you do that, your clients will make more money. No doubt about that. But we are not going to become part of a “hey, we can do this, this and this” culture. We are not a tick mark agency. We are a small group of individuals dedicated to using advertising as entertainment, which is what an advertisement should be. Mind you, having said that, because you are going to ask me this question later, with our joint venture with Orient, we did pitch, but then you can, because you are in a completely different environment, so you play by the rules of, I suppose, the big guns.

A: Do you subscribe to the view that creative talent is stifled in Pakistan?
FMH: You’ll find the creative mantra written in every agency; you’ll find it written even at Unilever. “Be open, take risks”. But somewhere along the line people give in, and this comes back to courage. Why are you giving in? Remember MNJ in the seventies? You had a creative guy at the top; good work coming out. As recently as the early nineties, you had Circuit: a creative guy at the top. They were coming out with work that was good, respectable. It didn’t offend our sensibilities in any way because there was somebody who cared enough to make that difference and that’s really all that it is. Over here, because you’re a businessman or there is a subcontinental culture when it comes to running a business, especially small and medium-sized businesses (which is what we are internationally), you can’t really drive that kind of ethic or ethos. That’s why a lot of people suffer. I wish they would make talented creative people partners in their agencies.

A: Aren’t most agencies ultimately one-man shows?
FMH: It’s always a one-man show. That’s the unfortunate part. There really can’t be a committee; there is no such thing as a collective vision; it’s got to be a creative dictator. You have got to be somebody who can just get that thing out, because that will become the voice of the agency. But it certainly helps if there are several creative individuals, but there is a hierarchy involved and that hierarchy should be encouraged because it helps good work come through.

A: Is it true that you are against awards?
FMH: Yes. We are not against being rewarded, and my definition of rewarded, for the time being, is just getting stuff out. We have the confidence to know that we are very good… an award won’t let us know that. We know that already. But certainly, when the time comes for us to display our peacock feathers and do the full corporate thing, when marketing comes into play for an agency, then certainly we will enter for awards. Our Mastercard TVC won an award, but it was entered by our client, Standard Chartered Bank. It won the Asia Pacific Award for the financial something or other.

A: When ads fail the creativity test, most agencies blame the client. Do you agree?
FMH: It is never the client’s fault. You are the agent. You are the ambassador of your work and you sell it. And there is a technique to selling. You sell it before the sale even comes up. You sell your reputation first and foremost, and you build a great relationship with the people that you will eventually be calling or selling to. Selling is an awful word, it’s actually communicating. You are communicating about your work. Once you have a trusting relationship then why wouldn’t your counterpart trust you? It’s the way any family works. Trust me and then let me prove it to you. Once they have tasted blood, they will want more of it, and they will keep coming back. That is the only reason why we have been able to keep a level of consistency. But then again, we personally interact with our clients; we personally manage the work.

A: Most agencies would say the same thing.
FMH: In a lot of agencies, and I wouldn’t say the top management, but the front liners, take an interest in a different priority, which is how much is this work going to get me as opposed to how much of this work is going to go out and do? Fortunately, in the D’Hamidi Partnership, both these interests run parallel to each other.

A: What is the nature of your arrangement with Orient McCann?FMH: It’s a joint venture. It means that the enormity of Orient as the largest agency in the country has been put into our service to espouse our brand of creativity for the clients we jointly pitch for. Orient just won their 20th APNS (All Pakistan Newspaper Society) business award. That’s a strong business arm, so why not link up with a strong creative arm and give the client a big hug? That’s the idea.

A: Is your agreement a contract?
FMH: Exactly that. It is for an indefinite period, which means forever, or whatever the deal is. The Mobilink campaign was the first result of this JV, and I’ve learnt a lot in the process. We get massive exposure and at the same time, you manage to put out a certain degree of creativity; it’s been a very interesting experience.

A: What brought D’Hamidi and Orient McCann together?
FMH: Orient has been wooing D’Hamidi since that day at Schon Bank, when they released our first ad. It is a very unlikely partnership, because here you have someone who is very conservative; we are two extremes really. Credit to Orient to want to make this difference. It takes a lot of courage. In some odd way, you might be perceived as admitting your fault, but actually what you are doing is admitting a huge strength, that we are very comfortable moving out and getting a group of people who are able to offer us something which we want more of. It is actually quite logical; in the 10 years we have been around, I distinctly remember Masood (Hashmi) taking us out for lunch and saying “let’s do something.” Except we never knew what to do. Clearly he has his own challenges, because he is heading an agency and we have our challenges. So it worked out and I think that is great. Why reinvent the wheel? I could wait 50 years to become as big as that, but I’m doing it now. It also takes a lot of guts to do this.

A: Does the D’Hamidi Partnership still retain its own exclusive list of clients?FMH: Completely. The D’Hamidi Partnership is The D’ Hamidi Partnership, and we are doing what we do, how we do it, all the way. This is something new that is developing as a parallel. The other day, for instance we were introduced to Unilever, which The D’Hamidi Partnership without affiliations and without the requisite trumpeting would not go for, or do.

A: When you jointly do work for a client, in this case Mobilink, under which agency name does the campaign branding go?FMH: That issue has not even been raised or been made a contention because the relationship is a mature one. As far as we are concerned, the lead agency, which is Orient in this case, carries the name. There are no two ways about it. Then again, there are so many relationships involved with an account of this size: You have Fortune PromoSeven, the Gulf guys who supervise the account regionally in tandem with McCann; Mediaterrania, Orascom’s lead agency whose local shadow is Orient, the service spine of the account; and The D’Hamidi Partnership. So the name has to be Orient because it is the one common factor among us all.

A: What is your long-term vision for the D’Hamidi Partnership?
FMH: To keep doing what we are doing as well as we can, and I’m sure that that will lead the way. And that’s really where I leave it. Yes, we all have our five-year plan and all that, but I don’t know what the next five years will bring. I can give you a stereotypical answer but that would be a disservice to the way that we think. We have lots of plans to be big and beautiful and bold and international. All of that is part of any lad’s dream. But the bottom line is: let’s just get the craft absolutely right, and the craft will dictate where we are going next.

Interview conducted by Mariam Ali Baig