Freddy Birdy, Naved Akhtar, Co-founder, Shop

In a big agency there is enough bad work floating, so you just squeeze a good work and manage the cost. Chances are that you will win an award for the fake one and it will help one move up in career. But the difficult part is to create something that might not merit an award but benefit the client and the consumer. You can do some bizarre packaging with some dew drop and the brand name thrown in some corner and win an award because it will look unusual from a jury's point of view, but not from client's point of view.

It's refreshing to meet Freddy Birdy and Naved Akhtar, co-founders of Shop, who are among the most celebrated team of copy-art in the advertising industry in India. Their unpretentious demeanor, their passion for advertising combined with their knowledge and confidence of their good work sets them apart from the rest.

They have worked with agencies including Trikaya, Mudra and McCann Erickson, and have created some of the brilliant works that one has seen in advertising such as Vimal, Rasna and Bata among others. Having moved from the agency set-up, the duo started their creative hotshop 'Shop' close to two years back.

In conversation with exchange4media's Tuhina Anand, the duo speaks about the challenges they faced after setting up their own enterprise, creativity issues, and how the ad scene in Delhi is as good as if not better that in Mumbai. Excerpts.

Q. How would you define Shop?

Naved: Shop is all kinds of creative solution wherever you are stuck, right from advertising, designing or re-branding. We started getting a lot of design work, which was not the intention, but we did well and continue to get work to design. We got into 3-D spaces, interiors and exteriors, and here too our knowledge of advertising comes in handy. When The Times of India was going all colour we were called to work on something to depict that. I came up with the idea of painting the building, but added a little twist to the Krishna playing Holi theme. We introduced the Pop Art genre and depicted the old story in a new medium. It's not just the knowledge of decorating a painting, but it's also the understanding of trends and systems where advertising plays a key role in contributing to our thinking irrespective of the medium. Whatever we do, we do best and there are no shortcuts. I would rather decline if I can't do any project well than give something that's mediocre.

Freddy: We are a creative hotshop that sort of cuts all the extras where you get just the creative product. In an agency the client gets in touch with the servicing person who in turn gets in touch with the creative guy. It's a long process and we are just cutting down all the unnecessary baggage. It's a very personal interaction and also the client gets to work with very top quality people, whereas if you go to an agency the client can be dumped on anyone, you don't know who works on the account. Here the client knows that people who have been briefed are working on the campaign. It is smaller, more intimate, personalised and more direct. Therefore, we have a limited number of clients, too, unlike an agency we can't take more than a certain number of clients. We don't pitch for any business, if there is a pitch we don't participate in it.

Freddy: Definitely. I am from Mumbai and moved to Delhi because I felt that there is an opportunity here. There are many clients who are based in Delhi, such as housing companies or automobile companies and they need specialised work. Mumbai has all the creative people, so for a creative person being in Delhi gets ample opportunities. There is not much buzz here because there aren't many industry happenings or any local awards in the city. But I have won the maximum ‘copywriter of the year' awards and I won them all in Delhi. You can find foothold wherever you are. If you have 2-3 good creative people in Delhi, you have say 40 good creative people in Mumbai, so there are so many more minds. Delhi is so spread out and there is no marked agency area as is the case in Mumbai, where agencies are located in a particular area. (With a glint of humour he adds) In Delhi, people have big houses and huge offices and love to stay there, whereas in Mumbai, they would love to move out of their tiny offices and get some fresh air!

Freddy: It's been a good start and profitable too. Personally, it's been a journey into an unexplored territory and has been exciting. When we set out to run our own business, the idea was to work on our own terms, and I think we are on the right track. We work directly with the client and have developed a work culture that we enjoy being a part of. Unlike in an agency where there is a hierarchy, at Shop our set-up is such that enables to us get direct feedback from the client. If there is a problem, the client can just pick up the phone and discuss with us directly on the issue.

Naved: It's been an exciting journey. I am not ambitious and for me success is not measurable only in terms of money. To me success is in its entirety, where the quality of life that one leads is a big component and my earnings do not guide this. We never wanted to grow very big. When we started, the idea was not to make it very big, yet we are doing very well for ourselves. The genesis of Shop came with the idea where we wanted to have more time to ourselves and could do what we liked while having a much cleaner system. We started out with financial security, so for us it was not a question of 'where will I get my next meal from?' It was not as if one was batting on the front foot. We have done decent amount of work in the past with decent salary and we thought fine let's do what we like to do on our own terms. Even today, if I find that I can't work with any client I bluntly refuse them. There is no desperation in that way to hold on to a client or take a client purely for building our bank balance.

Freddy: It's difficult and it's easy. A lot of people come to us because they know that we do certain kind of work and come with a certain reputation. They know our plus points. Very often we have clients who have an agency but come to us because they are stuck with an agency for six months who fail to deliver what he/she wants. We work directly with the client and deliver. Maybe we are better creatively than the other agency.

Freddy: An agency provides you with a different kind of glamour. You interact with many people in a day; all your expenses are taken care of. You have paid long lunches and same is for your travel. It's a little more comfortable. Here, you are worried about your costs, everything you spend is part of your profit. So, both have their pluses and minuses.

I could go back, maybe because I never say never. I don't see anything wrong in the agency culture. If something exciting came my way I would because agencies have their own glamour and value too. I don't know if this is an alternative to an agency, but we function like this in an agency too. The two of us are like a mini-agency in an agency. At Mudra we used to work together on a certain set of clients and it's almost the same practice now. I would love to work with other agencies on a project basis. Full time? Maybe not today, but maybe in the future.

Naved: I am not averse to going back either, but I should be convinced that when on board I will add value to my client and not go to an agency just for the heck of it.

Freddy: Because advertising is celebrity driven, the quality is not good. There is only a certain kind of advertising you can do with celebs, it's not idea-based but piggyback on celebs' popularity. When you are cashing on an image that already exists, ideas take a backseat, unlike Fevicol, where the idea is so strong and they are not using any celebs to endorse it. Creatives should be there to sell the product and not aim at being a piece of art.

Freddy: Well, I don't think a creative person should have a trademark. Every work you do should be aimed towards the product and not towards a person's trademark. I think not having a trademark is better. My style of work would be something that is not cliched, say a soap commercial should not look like a typical ad for soap, yet it should effectively communicate the client's needs.

Naved: Recently, someone described our work, which I take as a compliment. He said, it is clutter breaking, makes a point and yet is not esoterical or bizarre.

Freddy: It may be worrying as some month may be good and others are not. It's bit of a worry at the back of the mind, but we have never been overly driven by money, so not really.

Naved: Though I might sound casual about the entire affair of managing our business, but I keep an eye on how much we build every month, which has to be more than we spend. I feel tensed if we don't do well in a month regardless of the fact that the previous month we did some five times more business. Ours is not a growth-oriented model. We take only that much work, which a small set-up like ours can deliver.

Freddy: All the O&M works, especially Fevicol and the recent State Bank of India campaign. Some of the Coke work that McCann does is also good. These days what happens is that there is too much of celebrity advertising and I don't think advertising agencies have been able to use the celebrities in the right way. When you have say some 42 commercials with Amitabh Bachchan all of them can't stand out.

Every celebrity comes with an image and it's required to use the right image for that product. Aamir Khan is used for Coke, he is young, appeals to a wide audience, yet an icon. Therefore, I think the fit has to be right. Amitabh is so overused that you can't identify him with a product, it's just another ad featuring him. There are so many who haven't been used, say Rahul Bose, who is such an intelligent, thinking actor. He can be used for some women's product as they find him attractive.

Naved: If you see our work, I can confidently say that it is better than most of the agencies. In the press category, I can say that we can compete with anybody in town. Films, because we don't have such a huge account, but whatever little we do, even in films it is better than most agencies in Delhi.

I am restless about things. I can't just pass off anything that's not the best even when I know that nobody will notice the subtle difference, which I can as an advertising professional. I was talking to a client and I said that we missed something and even he agreed and that's a work he has approved of. Knowing that spelling it would only mean extra work for us, but I just can't let things go.

Naved: Awards matter in the early stage of one's career. In my case, I don't think it's important because it doesn't give me any benefit in either case. These days it's the business of awards that's taken centrestage and it has nothing to do with doing good work and winning awards. What I don't understand is if a campaign is not helping the consumer how does it qualify for an award? It's just a piece of art which you might just hang on your wall.

I would rather go on a holiday than do a fake campaign for awards. All these things cost money. In a big agency there is enough bad work floating, so you just squeeze a good work and manage the cost. Chances are that you will win an award for the fake one and it will help one move up in career. But the difficult part is to create something for shelf that might not merit an award but benefit the client and the consumer. You can do some bizarre packaging with some dew drop and the brand name thrown in some corner or some nonsense like that and win an award because it will look unusual from a jury's point of view, but not from client or a consumer's point of view.

Freddy: By word of mouth.

Naved: We have not pitched for any business. I feel that a pitch fee should be paid otherwise even agencies go half prepared and it also puts the clients on their toes who would refrain from useless pitching. Whatever work we do, we charge for it. Even if it is for some presentation, we charge for it. I am not here to play a gamble because whatever work I will deliver, it will be the best, so I am not worried about getting or losing a business. I am very straight about it. Anyways, those who have approached us often agree to this, otherwise I am not interested in them.

Naved: I believe there is no seriousness in any dealing unless money is exchanged. We can talk about things to be done but unless there is money exchange from either side there is no seriousness to that. That explains my stance on pitch fee too. A lot of clients who come to us, do so on the basis of seeing our work. We have businesses where the clients have full time agency but they come to us because they can't break away with the agency for some reason, yet they are not able to get the right communication. Many times we do step in on a project basis. There are also times when I have categorically said no to a client as I see that in the long run we might not get along with the client. If we don't pitch how do we get more business? Priya Gold came to us with some packaging work, but after they saw our work they gave us work for some 20 ranges of biscuits which will keep us busy for at least six months. We did some very small job for ICI Dulux and now we have done 10 projects with them. Business Standard came to us directly. 32nd Milestone came after seeing our TOI painting and today we are designing hotels for them. So, everything started with rapport. Whatever we do, we do really well, even if it's a small logo. That's probably why we get business even without pitching.

Freddy: Money. We were probably the highest paid team in Indian advertising and just the thought of whether we will be able to sustain was difficult, but the concern was never overpowering. Also, we had to pay salary to other people and the logistics of this was worrying. But it has worked out fine, touchwood!

Naved: I was quite prepared to go for painting or do something completely different if this didn't work out. Insecurities are in people's mind, I never felt insecure about going on our own.

Naved: We have grown double since our inception. I am restraining the growth, as it will only become complicated. To grow, we have to move out of this place. This will mean going back to the same that we have left behind. I have personally told clients to get lost and I am not answerable to anybody. If we'd stared this place right after college, we wouldn't be in a position to do so. When we started there was a reputation that we brought along, which also gave us the confidence that we didn't have to compromise.