EXCULISIVE INTERVIEW: HQSC Sells Intellectual Capital Relevant to Each Brand’s Success – Nnanke Harry Willie, CEO

Heritage Quality Services Consult (HQSC) Limited is an AAAN-member advertising agency. Incorporated in December 2002, the company commenced operations in January of 2003. Since then as the cliché goes, it has not looked back. Ayomide Oriade takes on HQSC founder and CEO as the brand consulting firm marks its 10th anniversary of successful business operations and discovers that the agency has since evolved from being an integrated marketing communications company into a brand optimization consultancy. Here are excerpts of the interview…

How has HQSC fared in 10 years of operations?
Looking at resources deployed and where we are coming from, I would say HQSC has done very well. When we started the scenario was quite different and we did well. The market environment has since changed over the years and HQSC has reinvented itself to still remain relevant and provide value to our clients and their brands. This is because we are thoroughbred professionals and very good at what we do, which is winning goodwill, stimulating demand and sales as well as creating the right emotional appeal and connection with the respective publics of our target. Of course, there have been times when things were topsy- turvy for us but on a scale HQSC has done well…but we can do better, which is the reason we keep reinventing ourselves in order to remain relevant to the growth and communications needs of our clients and their brands.

What has been the secret of your survival and success?
By constantly moving with the ball. We have been extremely professional in the way we conduct our business. I would say we have been extremely focused in the business of brand and marketing communications. When you begin from ground zero like we did you need God’s grace and a lot of smart work to lift you off the ground unto a comfortable cruise. We take every job; every single brief seriously. There’s no brief that is too small, there’s no brief that is too big for us. What we have come to realise is that we match resources with challenges that we have, and where we don’t have the resources available; we make sure we get them in. the business that we do requires that you depend a lot on the intellect of people. We sell intellectual capital that is relevant to each brand’s success. We discovered that we have to add value to what the clients are doing, so it does mean that when we receive a brief, we usually might go beyond what the brief has said; because as an agency and consulting firm, you have to help develop a brand. As consultants, the only way your income is guaranteed is when the brands are doing well. Therefore, our secret is that we see every brief not as an opportunity to impress but an opportunity to make us grow as we do our bit to grow the brands we encounter.

How do you deal with clients that impose ideas?
You must give it to the client, whoever it is that he has a right of opinion. Whichever client you are dealing with, you have to note that one of the key areas where we have to be good at is human psychology. So the very first target you are supposed to communicate with effectively when you are handling a brief is the client contact; which may be the brand manager, the marketing manager or the chairman of the company himself. It is up to you as a practitioner to know how to present your point and win him over, because if you do not win him over, you are not going to have your day in terms of quality of strategy or the communications campaigns that you deploy. For instance if he wants to impose a headline on the material you are working on or insists on the use of a particular medium you need to find a nice, professional way to let the client know that it will not be in best interest of his brand. If you are passionate enough the client will surely respect your views or position.

What would you say have been your high points so far?
My high points are so many. The first was when we got our first account. We were ecstatic because it was our first month. When we started, we just did an ad in Thisday back then, and we received a lot of calls. Out of those calls came Wadof. Wadof is a software company and interestingly I had worked on that account before some five years before when I was in a mid-size agency. Another very thrilling moment was when we got our first core business, which was Sona Breweries, the Wilfort Dark Ale, now Williams account We were really able to contribute to growing the Wilfort brand such that it exceeded even our client’s projections and made it the flagship of the group. Another highpoint was when we won what you call a prestige account that is, Vmobile. We won the media account through a pitch and held on to it for four years.
Consulting for the Nigerian Governors’ Forum is yet another 2007-2008. While at it, we were able to place them squarely in the media when, besides running an effective advertising campaign, we arranged a special session with about 75 print and electronic media editors in Lagos. You and I know the influence and impact of the Nigerian governors’ forum in the body polity of Nigeria today. Also we were able to virtually triple the fortunes of Archibuilt, the flagship exhibition brand of the Nigerian Institute of Architects when we were brought in to optimize the brand. Personally, I find fulfillment in positively affecting the bottom lines of our clients, effective communication is a piece of cake for HQSC, we also want to be sure that we have added value.

What about the challenges?
The challenges have been enormous. One of the greatest challenges is convincing your clients to have absolute faith in what you are doing. The way things are in this country, people believe big is better but everyone knows it’s not necessarily so, otherwise Cape Verde (a country of only 500,000) will not be featuring in 2013 Nations Cup Tournament) and David will never have defeated Goliath. What most clients do not understand is that, it is not the entire agency that works for you; it’s a team. So going to a big agency when all you need is a team of say seven to work on your account when your budget is not huge means you are short-changing yourself. Most likely your account will not be serviced by the Big agency’s ‘first eleven’. What you should look at is the experience of the people working on that account. I for instance, I have twenty two years of experience working on various brands. I have worked on some of the biggest brands in Nigeria, both from the inside or from the outside. I have done work for GTbank, Citibank , Mobil, NNPC, I was the pioneer promotions and advertising manager for Globacom before setting up HQSC. What that means is that when you are dealing with Nnanke Harry Willie, it means that he’s coming with a whole bouquet of experiences that by the time he puts it through a strategic process along with equally experienced and talented colleagues; you will be getting just as good a solution as you can from any world-class agency. Besides, tooling up on human capital is one of the easiest things to do in our industry. Once you win a mega account, you can attract virtually any serious practitioner available.
The other challenge is how some clients intentionally waste people’s time…and money. I think that is ungodly and wicked! I know of an insurance company that called agencies including our humble self and at the end of the day, the MD of this agency just called nephew and handed the account over to him and the result was clear with a patently sub-standard campaign. Cases like this are legion. The AAAN is fighting hard to curb this shameful tendency though. There is also the case where you find elements of your work out there with the client you almost had or never had. So you need to decide if you have the time to take him to court or do you just let it pass. That has happened quite a bit with us.
The final challenge is the acute shortage of qualified entry-level staff. This is not peculiar to our industry. It is general. This puts a lot of pressure on young and small to medium-size agencies as they need to spend a lot of time and resources to train personnel.

What are the core values of HQSC?
Humility, Quest for Knowledge, Innovation, Prudence, Commitment & Trust. Number one is humility. We are humble enough to know that we do not know everything, therefore we always seek knowledge. That takes us to the second value which is that we are a knowledge-driven organization and because we are knowledge-driven which leads to innovation. Since success must have a financial face, we offer strategies and creative solutions that will guarantee that you do not spend a kobo more than you should to achieve your objectives, meaning we are extremely committed to you and we have integrity. Integrity is critical for us and we are always driven by it. Final value is that we are result-driven. Those are our core values.

Who are your most treasured clients and accounts?
I would say all. Every client brings to the table something different and new; no matter how small or big or which sector. Naturally, from the business level you would rather have the juiciest accounts around and the one you cherish most is the one that brings you the most income, but there is also such a thing as professional and emotional fulfillment.
Why have you not disrupted HQSC? That is, why haven’t you broken into specialised agencies such as having a media independent agency, an activation or promotions agency and so on like the big agencies. Why have you chosen to remain compact despite the obvious trend?
I like the way you put the question. You said broken up. But we have actually disrupted without fragmenting. What I see happening is that you find agencies fragment into parts and in theory, have broken up, but in practice they are still one; because they still have a particular chief executive or chairman. I don’t know how it plays out for clients, but it seems the multinational companies like it that way. However, when we worked on the Vmobile media account, we were a full-service advertising and marketing communications consultancy at the same time we also provided complete ATL and BTL services to Sona Breweries, Hallmark Bank and CSCS. What that simply means is that so far you are a full service agency, all the things that the media independents were doing, we were doing. We have access to all the software and the training, we were communicating. There’s no magic about it.
If I take my media department now and put it on the next street, we are still one and the same thing. Maybe we are looking at it from a pragmatic point of view, because most time the volume of the business you have determines some of these decisions which is why sometimes you have a first line agency, second line agency and third line agency, because you have been inundated with a lot of work and you are still getting offers which you don’t want to lose. If you know anywhere I can get some of these huge businesses, I just might be able to disrupt like you are trying to make me do.
However we have also ‘disrupted’ in an unconventional way by birthing and promoting this publication BRANDPOWER magazine, just as we are partnering with institutions and sectors to handle big-ticket projects. 2 examples will be our work on NIA’s Archibuilt and the up-coming Nollywood at 20 project whose concept development and brand optimization we are responsible for. It would be an explosion, Watchout!

Is there any account you regret working on or can you share any unpalatable experience in the course of your operations?
For reasons of principle, which is that I would not discuss my businesses with my clients in the media, I would not mention names. But rather say the hurtful things that have happened. There was a company we worked for which we produced radio commercials, believe it or not, they carried the radio commercial, slammed it on air; refused to pay us and in the end we could not get the payment until the Taiwanese was deported. Apparently he had issues with the government and was repatriated. Two is, you work on an account that was supposed to be a big account, and at the end of the day because of the way they carry out their reconciliations and stuff, you discover that you have been short changed; the account has not been profitable. Nobody would like to work and lose money, but it has happened to us here. Finally, is the fact we have won an account, and have started deploying resources, employing more staff and the next thing we hear that a higher authority has instructed that the account be given to another agency. But then, in business, it comes with the territory.

How would you compare the advertising industry when HQSC started to what we have now?
When HQSC commenced operations, there were about eighty-nine banks; there were many insurance companies and many small companies, so there was opportunity for agencies that were serious to thrive. Today, banks have shrunk to about fifteen right now, insurance companies are shrinking also, and many small and medium enterprises are not operating anymore. The picture I am painting is that, there are not many clients out there! Unfortunately, you find out that a lot of interlopers have joined the fray.
Businesses that should be getting into the genuine advertising agencies are getting to the interlopers who probably were just artisans, printers or journalists. That was why we have a situation where a very sensitive advertisement was developed in this country and somebody somewhere did not realize that it cannot make sense for you to overlay that commercial with an obviously foreign voice-over; something as sensitive as the Boko Haram issue. I don’t know who did that, but I can assure you if the person is an advertising practitioner, he should be stripped of his membership of APCON, but I doubt the person would be. Those are fine details you shouldn’t joke with. Those are the issues, and you find it all over the place. Clients are losing money, Government is also losing money. It is like going to a road-side chemist for an ailment requiring specialist attention. In the long run you spend more money and may even lose your life. The industry here is pretty challenged and it is much more difficult to survive and succeed in the industry today than it was ten years ago.

Looking at the Nigerian advertising industry, what are the areas you think must be improved on?
I know that we have signed several international protocols but the federal government, relevant agencies and practitioners must come together to do something about keeping businesses here in Nigeria; by businesses I mean businesses that Nigerians or foreigners can operate in Nigeria. We should make sure we give Nigerians the opportunity to do them. It would solve a lot of social problems. As for the industry, there was a time when they did the indigenisation decree in 1973, a lot of local agencies sprang up and they thrived; the ones that were even foreign, had to be handed over to Nigerians. And Nigerians did advertising over that period and it went well.
We need to be able to note that there has to be some form of legislation or policy that keeps substantial advertising business here for Nigerians. It is much the same way as an artiste from the US wants to go and perform in the UK. There are certain kinds of things that must be done. There must be a number of local UK artistes that must feature in that show. There should be a template where even if the foreign company wants to come in, it should be able to partner with the local agencies so we can begin to build capacity and improve the economy. It has been done successfully in Brazil…

Heritage Quality Services Consult (HQSC) Limited is an AAAN-member advertising agency. Incorporated in December 2002, the company commenced operations in January of 2003. Since then as the cliché goes, it has not looked back. Ayomide Oriade takes on HQSC founder and CEO as the brand consulting firm marks its 10th anniversary of successful business operations and discovers that the agency has since evolved from being an integrated marketing communications company into a brand optimization consultancy. Here are excerpts of the interview…

How has HQSC fared in 10 years of operations?
Looking at resources deployed and where we are coming from, I would say HQSC has done very well. When we started the scenario was quite different and we did well. The market environment has since changed over the years and HQSC has reinvented itself to still remain relevant and provide value to our clients and their brands. This is because we are thoroughbred professionals and very good at what we do, which is winning goodwill, stimulating demand and sales as well as creating the right emotional appeal and connection with the respective publics of our target. Of course, there have been times when things were topsy- turvy for us but on a scale HQSC has done well…but we can do better, which is the reason we keep reinventing ourselves in order to remain relevant to the growth and communications needs of our clients and their brands.

What has been the secret of your survival and success?
By constantly moving with the ball. We have been extremely professional in the way we conduct our business. I would say we have been extremely focused in the business of brand and marketing communications. When you begin from ground zero like we did you need God’s grace and a lot of smart work to lift you off the ground unto a comfortable cruise. We take every job; every single brief seriously. There’s no brief that is too small, there’s no brief that is too big for us. What we have come to realise is that we match resources with challenges that we have, and where we don’t have the resources available; we make sure we get them in. the business that we do requires that you depend a lot on the intellect of people. We sell intellectual capital that is relevant to each brand’s success. We discovered that we have to add value to what the clients are doing, so it does mean that when we receive a brief, we usually might go beyond what the brief has said; because as an agency and consulting firm, you have to help develop a brand. As consultants, the only way your income is guaranteed is when the brands are doing well. Therefore, our secret is that we see every brief not as an opportunity to impress but an opportunity to make us grow as we do our bit to grow the brands we encounter.

How do you deal with clients that impose ideas?
You must give it to the client, whoever it is that he has a right of opinion. Whichever client you are dealing with, you have to note that one of the key areas where we have to be good at is human psychology. So the very first target you are supposed to communicate with effectively when you are handling a brief is the client contact; which may be the brand manager, the marketing manager or the chairman of the company himself. It is up to you as a practitioner to know how to present your point and win him over, because if you do not win him over, you are not going to have your day in terms of quality of strategy or the communications campaigns that you deploy. For instance if he wants to impose a headline on the material you are working on or insists on the use of a particular medium you need to find a nice, professional way to let the client know that it will not be in best interest of his brand. If you are passionate enough the client will surely respect your views or position.

What would you say have been your high points so far?
My high points are so many. The first was when we got our first account. We were ecstatic because it was our first month. When we started, we just did an ad in Thisday back then, and we received a lot of calls. Out of those calls came Wadof. Wadof is a software company and interestingly I had worked on that account before some five years before when I was in a mid-size agency. Another very thrilling moment was when we got our first core business, which was Sona Breweries, the Wilfort Dark Ale, now Williams account We were really able to contribute to growing the Wilfort brand such that it exceeded even our client’s projections and made it the flagship of the group. Another highpoint was when we won what you call a prestige account that is, Vmobile. We won the media account through a pitch and held on to it for four years.
Consulting for the Nigerian Governors’ Forum is yet another 2007-2008. While at it, we were able to place them squarely in the media when, besides running an effective advertising campaign, we arranged a special session with about 75 print and electronic media editors in Lagos. You and I know the influence and impact of the Nigerian governors’ forum in the body polity of Nigeria today. Also we were able to virtually triple the fortunes of Archibuilt, the flagship exhibition brand of the Nigerian Institute of Architects when we were brought in to optimize the brand. Personally, I find fulfillment in positively affecting the bottom lines of our clients, effective communication is a piece of cake for HQSC, we also want to be sure that we have added value.

What about the challenges?
The challenges have been enormous. One of the greatest challenges is convincing your clients to have absolute faith in what you are doing. The way things are in this country, people believe big is better but everyone knows it’s not necessarily so, otherwise Cape Verde (a country of only 500,000) will not be featuring in 2013 Nations Cup Tournament) and David will never have defeated Goliath. What most clients do not understand is that, it is not the entire agency that works for you; it’s a team. So going to a big agency when all you need is a team of say seven to work on your account when your budget is not huge means you are short-changing yourself. Most likely your account will not be serviced by the Big agency’s ‘first eleven’. What you should look at is the experience of the people working on that account. I for instance, I have twenty two years of experience working on various brands. I have worked on some of the biggest brands in Nigeria, both from the inside or from the outside. I have done work for GTbank, Citibank , Mobil, NNPC, I was the pioneer promotions and advertising manager for Globacom before setting up HQSC. What that means is that when you are dealing with Nnanke Harry Willie, it means that he’s coming with a whole bouquet of experiences that by the time he puts it through a strategic process along with equally experienced and talented colleagues; you will be getting just as good a solution as you can from any world-class agency. Besides, tooling up on human capital is one of the easiest things to do in our industry. Once you win a mega account, you can attract virtually any serious practitioner available.
The other challenge is how some clients intentionally waste people’s time…and money. I think that is ungodly and wicked! I know of an insurance company that called agencies including our humble self and at the end of the day, the MD of this agency just called nephew and handed the account over to him and the result was clear with a patently sub-standard campaign. Cases like this are legion. The AAAN is fighting hard to curb this shameful tendency though. There is also the case where you find elements of your work out there with the client you almost had or never had. So you need to decide if you have the time to take him to court or do you just let it pass. That has happened quite a bit with us.
The final challenge is the acute shortage of qualified entry-level staff. This is not peculiar to our industry. It is general. This puts a lot of pressure on young and small to medium-size agencies as they need to spend a lot of time and resources to train personnel.

What are the core values of HQSC?
Humility, Quest for Knowledge, Innovation, Prudence, Commitment & Trust. Number one is humility. We are humble enough to know that we do not know everything, therefore we always seek knowledge. That takes us to the second value which is that we are a knowledge-driven organization and because we are knowledge-driven which leads to innovation. Since success must have a financial face, we offer strategies and creative solutions that will guarantee that you do not spend a kobo more than you should to achieve your objectives, meaning we are extremely committed to you and we have integrity. Integrity is critical for us and we are always driven by it. Final value is that we are result-driven. Those are our core values.

Where do you see advertising in Nigeria in the next five years?
In the next five years if these things I have talked about are put in place, it would mean that there would be more industries, more entrepreneurs and more production. And if that is happening, it means the advertising agencies would have more briefs to work on, so the advertising and brand communications industry would be vibrant. If for instance the power supply promised us by President Goodluck Jonathan is delivered, it would solve a lot of problems. We have to create productive capacities. Industries must be allowed to bloom. If you can tell me that somebody who stole over 23 billion, pays back some millions and was given a slap on the wrist; goes home in his car, then encourage those who have also stolen money to come back home and set up shop. Let them do a plea bargain as well because it’s not helping us that you hear in the media that somebody has been caught with certain amount of money trying to fret it out of the country all the time. Nigerians must be encouraged to come and set up shop and one of the ways of doing this I must add, is what they did to foreign investors; that they have a five-year tax holiday, let them begin to do it for Nigerians. What is good for the foreigner should even be better for Nigerians.

What are your future plans for HQSC?
We want to live true to our vision which is to be pacesetters in brand optimization and achieve our mission of creating enduring values for brands and stakeholders. We want to impact our clients, their brands and society in unforgettable ways. We want to be among Nigeria’s top 3 brand optimization firms by billing in the next 3 years!