A report on Headlion Group Small Business and Entrepreneurship

Submitted to Sir Fazal Khalidi By Jamlords Production

Owais Moeen - 8333 Ali Vastani- 10051 Zubair Siddiqi - 10748 Mirza Ibraheem Saeed - 10192 S.M. Talha - 10523

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Contents
1. 2. 3. 4. Abstract .............................................................................................................................................. 3 The future trends of Advertising Industry in Pakistan:.......................................................... 3 Available Statistics on Advertising industry ............................................................................ 5 Entrepreneur Profile and Story: ................................................................................................... 6 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16 4.17 4.18 4.19 5. Family background .................................................................................................................. 6 Education and early days of career: ................................................................................... 6 Choosing for own business .................................................................................................. 7 Headlion and the Sushi Restaurant: ................................................................................... 7 More on Headlion: .................................................................................................................... 7 Clientele ...................................................................................................................................... 8 Vision Statement of Headlion ............................................................................................... 9 Initial Ground work: ............................................................................................................... 10 Legal formalities / percussions .......................................................................................... 11 Any legal issues faced? ....................................................................................................... 11 Advertising industry as a whole? ...................................................................................... 11 Qualities / Traits of a successful entrepreneur .............................................................. 11 Barriers to entry: .................................................................................................................... 11 Buyers and Suppliers of Advertising industry: ............................................................. 12 Marketing Strategy used to differentiate vs the big giants: ....................................... 12 SOCIAL MEDIA ....................................................................................................................... 12 Good and bad experiences.................................................................................................. 13 Future expansion plans ........................................................................................................ 13 Advice ....................................................................................................................................... 13

Appendix: Creative Samples....................................................................................................... 14

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1. Abstract Advertising in Pakistan still keeps reeling from the creative flair and the execution that it requires. It takes, as they say, two to tango. An advertising agency good as its client. If a client is good agency would also be good and vice versa. However, dont expect an advertising company to turn a concept into an affective commercial if the client is not willing to provide the environment, the people, the frame-work and the last but not the least the appropriate funds? Demanding quality output without providing quality input can hardly be expected to work. Quality has a price. Having said that it is also important to understand that unlike many other countries, including India, lack of professionalism and creativity in the Pakistani advertising industry can also be attributed to dearth of technical skills. It is an established fact that advertising industry draws its strength from the film industry. We are all aware of the lack of professionalism and technical know-how in our film industry and thus our ad industry is unable to draw the needed technical backup.

Another restricted growth of the ad industry can also be attributed to the ground realities of the Pakistani market. Like all other businesses advertising too should not be expected to perform in isolation. It performance depends heavily on the performance of the other sectors of the economy. And that explains the reason for the changing role of the advertising agencies from that of mere providers of traditional services as print and audio-visuals. In the digital world of today, they have to provide a range of services like marketing, event manager and brand builder all wrapped up in one. While the expansion has helped many advertising agencies to diversify their business to find alternative sources of revenue to achieve economies of scale it has also put an enormous burden on work on them. Many clients try to take an advantage of this situation by pressing the advertising agencies to do the consumer research as of it is part of the job 2. The future trends of Advertising Industry in Pakistan: The world of advertising has gotten a serious facelift with the amount of technology that has been integrated in it nowadays, and although the rest of world is already being drenched in pretty cool advertising methods the best pakistan has ever reached is advertising in elevators and shopping mall LCDs, here are some of the methods that are being used for advertising around the world:

Augmented Reality Methods of Advertising Augmented reality is explained in detail Here but for those of us who wont bother to read that here is what it is in a short,

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Augmented Reality works by basically taking am image, an animation or a video shot in front of a camera(using chroma) and then making that appear over real world objects, or in more simple words Augmented reality is making a virtual object appear over actual objects i.e. paper, cards etc Augmented reality has been used in the outside world for quite some time now and has now even spread to mobile platforms, there are several apps avaiable for mobile phones which can now show you augmented objects using the camera of your mobile, for example Wikitude app for iphone can point you to Wikipedia entries near you current location, also the Star Walk app lets you see real-time images which point you to stars, and planets, this is achieved using your devices compass, GPS all you have to do is point your device to the sky. Augmented reality also has a lot of other uses as well which include sharing ideas like if you wanted to redesign your room you can get a version drawn and then view it real time as an overlay to your room hence enabling you to see whether all the things would fit it or look good. Also with new gear like Headworn Display for watching Augmented Reality will also eliminate the need of a webcam or a PC to view the products. Here is an example of augmented reality advertising campaign by BMW for there new Z4 car in which you just had to print out the augmented paper material on a plain paper, download the application from BMW and turn your webcam on, after you placed the printed symbol in front of the camera and select scan in the application, you could see the Z4 on your screen and control and drive it with your keyboard, it is as simple as that.

Now if you consider this tech with Pakistan in mind, i do think this is a type of advertising that can easily come to Pakistan, it would not be common or cheap but several Multi-Million Dollar organizations can use it to create advertises which will shock almost everyone as they would think its some sort of Magic which is why they will never forget that product. I do however think that the AR apps for mobiles will play a big role in making this advertising possible in the very near future as Pakistan is going totally mobile and gadget crazy nowadays. Interactive Screens in Public Places: Interactive Bus Stops consist of various tech which improves the overall experience of waiting for a bus more exciting, this tech mostly consist of touch screen interfaces that allow you to do various differnet things, for e.g. you can play interactive touch screen games like puzzles, tetris etc on the screen, you can also watch the latest trailers of upcoming movies, these screens can also boost various ads which are interactive or can use face recognition, most of these screens also include cameras so you can play augmented reality paper there as well , plus they can give out free candies

Although i love this technology i doubt this will available nationwide in the next 10-20 years, the reason is simple, if you place these sort of touch screen anywhere in pakistan they will Page 4 of 56

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definately be stolen overnight, if not hundreds of teenagers will spend hours fighting over who plays the next tetris game and none of the people waiting for a bus will have access to this. 3. Available Statistics on Advertising industry Unfortunately there is no concrete data that exists on public forums for advertising industry. Following data has been gathered to authenticate the evolution of advertising industry from personal contacts working in ad agencies whose names cannot be disclosed.

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Source: This year. Next year by GroupM, Sept2010

4. 4.1

Entrepreneur Profile and Story: Family background Neil P. Christy belongs to an Air Force family. His father Peter Christy was a pilot in Pakistan Air Force who was missing in action in 1971 war. Peter was awarded sitara e jurrat by Govt. of Pakistan after being declared martyred in 1976. Neil feels proud of his father and calls him an inspiration of light that motivated him during the tough times in life. His mother was a teacher who also served as principal (Head-Mistress) of PAF Base Masroor School. His sisters are doctors in Pakistan Air Force.

4.2

Education and early days of career: Neil got admission in University of Engineering and Technology Lahore but he quit UET in 1994 after he got an opportunity to work for a small advertising agency. He saw it as a door of opening to fulfill his dream to make the world a better place through advertising although he was offered to start off with a gross salary of Rs 2200/- but money was not his fascination. His aim was much much bigger. Neil opted for advertising to pursue his passion despite of the fact that his job after completing his engineering degree was guaranteed in PIA on quota of martyrs of Armed forces hence embracing the risk and challenge of working for advertising industry as a new entrant. Page 6 of 56

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Besides his Family who supported his decision when they saw his passion and eagerness to work for advertising industry, luck was also with Neil as he got an opportunity to work for Interflow which was and still Pakistans No. 1 and largest advertising agency in terms of clientele and business within a year after his 1st job. Interflow turned out to be a launch pad for Neil to enter the lime light of advertising industry where he learnt all the tricks of the trade!

4.3

Choosing for own business One might think after entering Pakistans biggest advertising agency, this would be it. But Neil was unstoppable. He envisioned his own advertising agency which would only do creative and nothing but creative work. Neil puts it: Everybody wants to have their own business. I cannot imagine a single person who wouldnt have thought about having his/her own business at least once in a life time. Sadly, not everyone takes the risk and initiative but people do think about it Neil got disappointed with the seth-owned culture and the standards they had set of advertising the industry and vowed to have his own advertising agency which would focus on quality over quantity. While responding to a question on the reason behind starting his own business Neil exclaimed: You might find it funny but I hated the standards of advertising set by these seth owned agencies in Pakistan. I hated the way Ideas were presented and shot down and no one actually dared to have a change. I was the creative head in my last assignment yet I was not allowed to exercise full creativity as my boss used to convince the client for lesser creative solutions. Neil imagined an advertising agency whose work would speak for itself and not the agency who would be pleading in front of the client to believe in its work.

4.4

Headlion and the Sushi Restaurant: Neil came up with a solution to his issues in the form of a sushi restaurant. People would go to a sushi restaurant only when they are interested or they like the flavor. Likewise, Neil wanted to position as an agency where only those clients would come who want and understand creative work and big ideas

4.5

More on Headlion: The concept behind the name Headlion is that its a combination of Strategy and Creative. Lion is not just a symbol of courage, it relates to communication as well since the lion has the loudest roar for which its famous for so. Since its a creative concept hence LION represents creativity. Page 7 of 56

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Likewise The Head stands for strategy since creative cannot be executed unless it is backed with a solid strategy. Headlion officially started off on 1st January 2005. It consists of four following key departments namely:

Strategy Client Services

Creative Media

Headlions culture is of an organization where every individual is encouraged to make use of his / her brain for coming up with more and more creative ideas instead of being dictated from top. Traditionally people believe that ideas can only come from strategy or creative department of an ad agency but in Headlion, Neil believes that every individual working for his agency is intelligent even the tea-boy and gate-keeper are allowed to express their ideas in brain storming sessions for brands that are aimed towards masses. Neil proudly quotes during his interview: We won the pitch of one of our telecom clients on the idea suggested by the Peon! 4.6 Clientele Following are the major clients:

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Headlion won Dawns aurora Award pioneering to be the 1st agency to win the award in its 1st year of operation. 4.7 Vision Statement of Headlion To raise the bar by drawing a line between creative sense and business sense, walking over it, without crossing on either side and helping marketers understand its potency.

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4.8

Initial Ground work: No stiff homework done initially. Neil started brainstorming about his business in early days of his career in 1994 when his colleagues made fun of him after he disclosed that he has an ambition to open his own agency in future. To accomplish his dream, Neil dedicated his efforts to learn the ins and outs of advertising industry in 6-8 years. Started off as copy writer, took initiatives to learn more, He also worked for Client Servicing Unit at Interflow to handle the business and got an opportunity to deal with the rough clients. His experience in creative department helped him understanding the creative need of the client and he used to sit with creative personnel to conceptualize exactly what the client wanted which eventually turned the agitated clients into profitable relationships. Neil also worked indirectly with Strategy department at Interflow as well. After realizing that he has got the experience to start off his own work, Neil started free lance work along with his job but he made sure that his job was not affected with the free lance work. He used to work in the morning at the agency and spent his time at an apartment he got near his office to work free lance in the evening and started taking small projects. He was optimistic to get hold of a big client to take off his own advertising agency which one would think it was most unlikely in the given circumstances. Luck knocked at his door once again and Neil got a call from Marketing Head of Tetley who heard about him through a reference. Tetley had restructured their marketing department, and fired their old agency since the brand was suffering. He was told that Tetley has got 4 big agencies and they want to play a wild card with a small agency just to give it a try. Neil worked hard on the concept and gave a confident pitch. Within two days he got a call from Tetley that he has won the account. He was asked what was the name of his agency and he mentioned the name Headlion Since tetleys Marketing head was aware of the fact that Neil was working on freelance basis, he enquired Neil the initial expenses he needs to start off. Neil budgeted his initial cost to deliver quality service to the client and forwarded the quotation. Retainer fee was used to start off the business which was provided by Tetley. Good thing about advertising is You dont need much of resources to start off except for human investment of people who are creative and have a lot of common sense. All you need is a laptop, professional network and the ability to deliver. You can actually start with almost a zero budget. The retainer fee from Tetley was utilized for spending on human resources, building rent etc. after getting Tetley on board Neil and team started off pitching for more accounts and their story unfolded.

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4.9 Legal formalities / percussions Neil started off as sole proprietorship hence there was no legal formalities involved at the time of formation of Headlion Group. Headlion eventually turned into Pvt. Limited company and it was registered with SECP. Neil suggested if you are venturing into Pvt. Limited company hiring a full time accountant is not a good idea if your business is on a small scale. Its better to have an accountant who would make financial statements and perform other accounting related tasks at a lesser pay working part time.

4.10 Any legal issues faced? Headlion got a legal notice from Ogilvy and Mathers on claim for using the picture of David Ogilvy on communications of Caf-HeadLion. Neil handled the issue tactfully by sending a bouquet and two passes for free lunch at Caf Headlion to Ogilvy and Mathers. Neil puts it: You need to be smart in business. Dont get caught in small quarrels but bigger battles to fight. Be smart and try to settle issues outside the court and your focus should not be deviated from your goals.

4.11 Advertising industry as a whole? Neil sees advertising as means of promotion for every business whether its profit or a non-profit organization. Companies need advertising to sustain their growth as well as companies going down need advertising to grow. Like every industry advertising industry has seen its ups and downs but generally Advertising industry keeps on surviving. At the same time, your faith also counts when an industry suffers a downturn.

4.12 Qualities / Traits of a successful entrepreneur Neil sees an entrepreneur as a Lion whos a risk take and courageous. One needs persistence for sustaining a business. Intelligence also matters. Negotiation skills also come into play. Humbleness is also very important.

4.13 Barriers to entry: No barriers as such except the lobby of existing players in the industry who dont let new entrants to enter that easily. The startup firm may use its contacts to get into play! Page 11 of 56

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4.14 Buyers and Suppliers of Advertising industry: Buyers are the companies that buy the services of the advertising industry. Likewise suppliers are advertising agencies as well as production houses, media buying/selling houses, vendors for collaterals etc

4.15 Marketing Strategy used to differentiate vs the big giants: The main challenge for Neil was to create recognition for the brand Headlion vs the big giants of advertising industry. People knew Neil but not Headlion. Neil was smart enough to attract niche clients who were not happy with their agencies or the creative work their agencies was doing. The operational issues were due to the fact that advertising agencies were run on seth-owned philosophy and their family members were at key positions. The 1st ad was released in aurora for Rs 30,000/- captioned F*** Headlion which won the aurora award. Likewise a billboard was placed captioned Kill Headlion. Both ads were to be pretended ads placed by Seth-Owned ad agencies. Another creative executive Headlion did was a viral video which was unique in its own sense since in 2005 there was no concept of viral marketing videos for promotion. The video was a dubbed clip of God Father movie which showed a conversation of seths talking about getting rid of headlion since Headlion was focused on creative work. The video was sent to various marketing / brand managers. Afterwards, Headlion was repositioned on the concept of Lions.

4.16 SOCIAL MEDIA Word of mouth is very important as traditional advertising methods are getting less receptive. Headlion makes effective use of social media to generate word of mouth through conversations online. The avenues used are Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIN /youtube Headlion caught the attention of the international community for the unique Concept of CAF Headlion through social media.

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4.17 Good and bad experiences Neil defines Happy moments when a good campaign came out from Headlion & Bad experience with back stabbers worked with him. But nothing mattered to him much as he remained focused on the goals he wanted to achieve

4.18 Future expansion plans Pioneer in everything that I do. campaigns W for word of mouth campaigns and ONLION for online

4.19 Advice Eat enjoy what comes your way. The good and the bad Love do what you are passionate about Pray Keep the faith and Hang in there

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5. Appendix: Creative Samples

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