Know-it-Allers versus Learn-it-Allers

'Since I am back to running an ad agency full-time after many years, I have witnessed a new breed of clients', says the author

Next week, I will complete 36 years in the advertising business. Much has changed in the three-and-a-half decades since I started my innings at HTA’s famous 35, Rani Jhansi Road office in New Delhi. The business itself has been re-contoured in more ways than one. But clients haven’t.

My first boss, Sanjay Sehgal, gave me my initial mantra in figuring out client types. He said clients broadly fall into two broad baskets. There are those whose measured “professional” response to any new idea presented to them is always “who else has done it?” — seeking validation, endorsement and affirmation from others before taking any decision. And then there are those who excitedly, almost breathlessly, say, “I hope no one else has done it!” so that their brand can be the first to do it. That is their pride. I learnt very quickly that the ratio was 90:10.

Luckily for me, my first ever client, Shashi Vandrevala, the marketing head of the Maurya Sheraton hotel, belonged firmly to the latter type. She would enthusiastically embrace, support and propagate any new initiative that she thought made sense. Swimming pools were still a rarity in those days. Just before the onset of summer, I presented her with an idea on how to “monetise” the pool at the hotel. The “Cool-Pool-School” thought focused on getting vacationing school kids from the hotel’s tony neighborhood to come swim at the Sheraton on a two-months summer membership in off-peak hours. Ms Vandrevala thought it was a fab idea. But there was immediate push-back from Guest Relations: Which other five-star allows non-residents in the pool? Ms Vandrevala made light of their objections. Cool-Pool-School, in the torrid Delhi summer was a scorching success! The affluent kiddos not only thronged the pool but grabbed every table too in the adjoining coffee shop during fallow hours! Ms Vandrevala could spot a smart idea from a mile. And make it happen. Only one out of 10 clients can be Shashi Vandrevala.  

When I was running my Dentsu joint-venture in the early 2000s, we were invited to a client pitch for a corporate campaign. The brief included a vision statement, a mission statement and a 370-page corporate document, with a thousand graphs, some smart MBA at McK must have put together. I knew the company’s owner from some earlier interactions. Mr B was earthy. He had not been to any B-school. But he had built his empire by exporting world-beater products to half the globe.

Each of our competitors came armed with a dozen of “the-higher-you-go-the-farther-you-see” kind of lofty campaigns clients usually love to see and run.

I landed up at the meeting with no creative work; not even a strategy document. I said my understanding of their brief was a little different. Most client companies have their share of dreamers — those that foresee the future and help plan, plot and prepare for it. These future gazers are all astronomers armed with their own cerebral telescopes (with some or more help from McK!). I then took out a white globe and placed it on the table. Everyone tried to figure out what it was. It was a globe of the moon. I said, “Mr B, I know you are not happy just looking at far worlds and opportunities through a telescope. You want to get there,” and I pointed to the moon globe. “You, sir, are an astronaut. You’d rather be there where the action is going to be tomorrow”. We won the business. The client loved being called an astronaut (active doer) over astronomers (sedate pontificators)!

Since I am back to running an ad agency full-time after many years, I have witnessed a new breed of clients: The Know-it-Allers. We recently presented to a lady who is the marketing head of a senior citizens’ community. She seemed to know everything about everything, especially advertising — colours, fonts, even the use of ellipses (why she kept bringing that up repeatedly is beyond my comprehension) and continued to stress “design principles” after every sentence. Finally, I had to ask her that while you seem to know it all about advertising, why is your own brand seeing zero traction?

And finally there is the new lot that I love as clients: The Learn-it-Allers. Bright souls at the many unicorns. I met, for example, this young team led by Abhiraj Bhal at the Urban Company the other day. We got to discussing their “beauty salon at home” business. I was truly impressed by their identification of an emerging market opportunity during Covid, the speed-to-market with a top-rate product, sheer brilliance in logistics planning and consumer tracking that has in the past two years made them a leader in a category that a Unilever or L’Oreal would die to own. Yet Mr Bhal remains grounded, ever receptive to new ideas, mentally jotting down every suggestion that could accelerate his market capture.

Learn-it-Allers are clients willing to discuss and debate. Not just dictate. They are the future.

The writer is managing director of Rediffusion