Vahid Mehrinfar, Executive Principal, Idea, Lowe Contexture, Bahrain

"We are the brand futurists, we make the most educated and intelligent, accurate guess about the future of a brand."

Vahid Mehrnifar, who has contributed to the industry of advertising in Gulf, is a trained industrial designer, who was well known in US and other advanced markets in the eighties as architectural visualist

Mehrnifar’s professional career over the past 24 years has taken him through a spectrum of complex assignments in design to developing strategic corporate communication and positioning programs for brands, advertising and creating many indigenous brands regionally in the Middle East.

In the year 1990, Mehrnifar married a Bahraini partner and relocated to the Kingdom of Bahrain. Design consultancy ‘Contexture Associates’ formed by him in 1992, is now Lowe Contexture, one of the three largest agencies in Bahrain. Mehrnifar has recently set up Vahid Associates to provide branding activities and strategic consultancy services to his clients.

Mehrnifar considers this juncture of his life, personally and professionally, to be a gateway to a new era of creative achievement. In a no holds barred dialogue with Ritu Midha of exchange4media Mumbai bureau, he speaks of his past achievements, future dreams, and of course of building futuristic brands.

Q. And…

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And we made it. I come from a league that believes in quality approach. We are one of the top three agencies in Bahrain, and we are honoured to be a part of Lowe family worldwide. It really became a love at first sight kind of success. Ours is an extremely workable relationship.

Q. What are the major brands that you are handling?

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Talking of global brands, we are honoured to be handling accounts like HSBC with Lowe. We are extremely happy to be associated with superb creative work being done by Lowe worldwide.

Let me tell you of an indigenous brand that we have built – Credimax – we coined the name also. We gave the local brand the sort of image and life story that it required to be accepted and respected as a major brand. It is the only credit card from a local bank and it needed to be independently branded. Today it has 65% to 70% of the market-share. This brand is going outward, from country to the region and then hopefully, sometime in future, it would be launched in India also.
Another brand that we have created is a household product called Optima — We named, branded and packaged it –– it is basically a Middle Eastern company that owns it and has about 100 products – now it is in India, Iran and other countries as well. It is, again, growing outwards

Q. There are quite a few Indians on senior posts in your agencies. What makes them better suitable for these jobs?

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You don’t know better because you come from an area – you know better because you as an individual know. Both the countries I have the honour of being associated with-US and Iran – either by birth or education, are completely unbiased about that. Merit wins and not where you come from. Having said that, I talked to other people also, the ones that merited most were Indians.

I happen to believe that my line of ethics and belief and point of view of life is more associated with Indians.

There is an Indian agency syndrome – people feel that if an agency is all-Indian, it is not going to make it. Some of that is Indian’s fault. I am in the business of branding and so I recognise the social issues very quickly. If it is a group of very young Indians who have not done any work internationally, but believe that what works in India will work in gulf also, it is not going to happen. But if you place appealing, switched-on, up market, innovative, educated, articulate young Indians together than you would have a great agency – which happens to be Indian. My organisation relies on those Indians. CEO of my biggest company is an Indian – he used to run BBDO in Calcutta and Delhi. He is my partner.

Q. So you handle media as well?

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Certainly. You might find it interesting. Right now in Gulf most of media owners also own agencies. So agencies like us are at the mercy of these conglomerates. However, due to our unique approach to business of advertising and our meticulous attention to quality, we have gained the trust and support of the clients. They might be getting a little less attractive deals on the media from us than the people who own both media and the agency – but the clients don’t want to work on the basis of attractive deals alone anymore. They want the strategy that would move their products.

From being only a design company, we broke into media, and now we are probably the second largest media buyers in the country. And, in addition, we are in a very envious position, we are paid fees, and no advertising agency in our country gets that. I sell my ideas - I don’t sell discounts.

Lowe’s coming together with us has certainly expedited the process of us moving into big league

Q. Are you planning to initiate a business in India?

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We have reached a state where all our companies are working efficiently. Now is the time to go back to what I really was all about. For 12 years I kept quiet about what really I am. What I can do – I was too busy setting up a livelihood. Everyone sees me as an agency owner and a creative man. Unfortunately, they don’t really know that this is very small and insignificant in comparison to what I can really do artistically. Visionary stuff I do for my clients is really a byproduct of what I was before.

I am launching brand Vahid, and we came to the conclusion that the best consumption of what I had to say would happen in countries like India and Iran for a simple reason – mass, spirituality is part of life and arts are engraved in the culture. Besides, there are big players who can appreciate my work. This is a land of promoters and promoting – it is an all-American thinking from commercial point of view. The combination is impressive.

Besides, I do have a weak spot for India and Indians –as a child I lived next door to India’s ambassador to Iran. All my life I saw India in his collection of things, and his way of living. Not to mention Raj Kapoor, we grew up loving him and other film stars. I still remember Sangam.

Q. Tell us about yourself, how did you move from design to advertising?

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When I started my career in United States, I rapidly became known to the communication industry particularly in the area of real estate promotion. I was, at that point in time, developing and producing images of real estate projects that did not exist yet – I was visualising them. I would, as a result, interact with some very well-known advertising agencies that handled these products. There was a great degree of interaction at a very high artistic and technical level where they relied on my solutions. Due to the lack of a better word, I would say that I was their supplier and consultant.

And when I moved to Middle East by the reason of marriage, closest business to what I was all about was advertising. At that time advertising in gulf was completely unstandardised. None-the-less, these were the only pockets of business that dealt with anything called art. So by default, I joined advertising.

Q. What, do you think, Lowe saw in your agency?

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Well, if I put myself in their place, I feel they must have noticed level of conviction and discipline we have brought in. We brought style, ethics, harmony, and expertise to advertising business in Gulf. We put sex appeal in advertising in Middle East.

We are the only agency that works by referral only. At least in past three and a half years we never had to pick up the phone and ask for work – it comes our way. Lowe must have taken note of all this. Our relationship is expanding– and you would hear a lot more about Lowe and us.

Q. What was the reason for starting Vahid Associates?

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Some of the services I offer are not a part of Lowe’s portfolio, and looking at our talent and successful track record they permitted me to have this company. I can’t abandon my clients who rely on my advice for their brand’s viability, I am in the business of developing indigenous brands, and designing anything from the cultures to engineering the perceptions. We are the brand futurists, we make the most educated and intelligent, accurate guess about the future of a brand.

Q. Are you looking at advertising or beyond?

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It may be correlated to advertising, but we are looking at something much bigger – creating serious futuristic brands. Design in my opinion is still weak in India – while advertising is well advanced. We are talking of an inspirational approach to design, which is better than even in Europe.

Through this we intend to get a clientele of five six good conglomerates and be an advisory body to them. And hopefully show that we can help increase their profits. And secondly, through this attract one right partner that would appreciate and acknowledge our work.

Q. Are you already in talks with someone?

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I would answer it this way – for the potential that we saw here, initial signs are very encouraging.

Q. Isn’t there a clash of interest in HSBC and Credimax? Both are banking products.

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HSBC creative decisions are being made worldwide. We are simply facilitating the brand, we don’t draw strategies for it, and as long as you don’t sell two strategies against each other – there is no clash of interest. And, besides, we have our firewalls in place.

Q. But aren’t people in Middle East exposed to these ‘sensuous’ ads courtesy satellite channels?

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Yes of course. Communication is borderless now. We would not initiate sensuous advertising, however as far as receiving them is concerned – the skies are open.

However, the ads that are targeted at people in Middle East are far less evocative. Besides most of the people watching Hindi satellite channels in Middle East are ex-pats from India, or those who relate to it. It would be naïve to think that no people of Middle-Eastern origin would be watching these channels, but numbers would be very insignificant. They have other channels catering specifically to them.

Q. Initiative Media is the media-buying arm of Lowe – is it there in Bahrain also?

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Bahrain is a small market and does not require a separate media company. Having said that, Initiative Media might be coming to Middle East as a concept, or even be there physically, but the main focus would naturally be on Dubai. However, we are beneficiaries of whatever Lowe gets from several sister companies, and initiative media will pass on their benefits to us through Lowe, whatever is applicable.

Q. Do you have tools for guessing the future of the brands or is it intuitive?

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I call it injecting or infusing inspiration in enterprise. And, by the way, it works. All our clients make more money on their products when they come in contact with us. We help them to see life outside - in, rather than inside – out. I help them to bench trend, and not just benchmark. Bench trend is looking forward. I tell them not to look at the past success of the brands. Past success, particularly in Gulf, is a default success because of the oil phenomenon. However, now a more normalised business atmosphere is emerging due to globalisation, arrival of multinationals and many other reasons. It does not allow you to operate like you did earlier.

My job, therefore, is to prepare them aspirationally to move forward. My intuition does not come out of the skies, it is a result of excellent exposure, and has weathered the test of time. In the US, I had clients who were the heads of the states. I worked with who is who of the corporate world. Corporate intuition combined with artistic ingenuity and practical training gives you a lot of value. The futuristic painting that I did constantly dealt with what is not there.

Soul is also like a muscle – it can be practiced and made stronger – my intuition, that is the part of my soul has become stronger. My guessing today has value and people get rewarded for accurate positioning of their businesses.

Q. How is advertising in Middle East different from India?

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In India, one can explore the Hollywood style advertising – you guys have much more tolerance by virtue of the way the society is formed. Sense of freedom in advertising expression, which is here, we don’t have. And I don’t think it should be there because our community will not be able to accept it. I think sensuous advertising is not what India needs in order to succeed. Is it the nation that wants such ads – is it the popular opinion, or is it that an Art Director thought that it is cool to push the limit? And ultimately does unnecessary display of skin solve any purpose?

However, from an industry point of view, obviously you guys are fifty years ahead. Middle East is still in the process of evolving.