Opting to be the underdog

Founder of advertising agency Underdog, Vistasp Hodiwala says he has taken two leaps of faith in his lifetime. The first was when he gave up his job as a buyer for a garment firm after working there for a brief period. It was "too claustrophobic,” he says, and he got tired of grappling with "determined suppliers who offered chai-pani (tea and water, euphemism for under-the-table money) and their requests to him to be more ‘worldly’ about matters.” That was when he decided to move into a new field — of advertising in 1994. The second moment occurred two years ago when the then 43-year-old decided that he had had enough of the ‘big advertising agency syndrome’ in J. Walter Thompson (JWT), where he was vice president and senior creative director and struck out, with a partner, Vikram Gaikwad, to set up Underdog.

Vistasp Hodiwala (left) with Vikram Gaikwad

Talking to Parsiana in the central suburban office of Underdog on March 14, 2016, Hodiwala tells us the second move came out of "the urge for creating something rather than just spending time working on assignments which my heart was really not into.” He says he waited for the right time till he found a partner who believed in the same values and vision and "when I found Vikram ready to take the plunge, the rest of it was not as difficult as it may actually appear,” he laughs. Gaikwad tells us that he wishes Hodiwala and he "had met much earlier.” As partner and executive creative director of Creative Land Asia, he and Hodiwala "clicked very quickly,” he says, having met through mutual friends at Cannes and Goa, venues for advertising festivals.
Walking us around his 550 sq ft leased office which now houses 12 employees, the entrepreneur explains why he did not want to court clients of JWT. "I did not think it ethical to lure them away with a promise of better service.” They are underdog by spirit and want to keep a low profile, he says. Will they change their name when they grow large and famous? No, he laughs, "It was a carefully considered name.”
"We are a full-service agency (providing both creative inputs as well as media services) but we believe in careful, organic growth, so our investments are always commensurate with the needs of our clients,” says Hodiwala. His "middle class origins wouldn’t allow me to start a venture in a pool of debt,” so instead of borrowing from friends, they began in the most modest way possible, states the ad man. Underdog’s major client is BookMyShow, "India’s biggest online ticketing platform for whom we handle just about everything: mainline, mobile and digital,” says the professional. The second major client is a realty company "for whom we handle their luxury living projects.” In addition "we have two clients who we won in the very first year,” another realty company from Poona that is setting up two townships and an electrical giant from Delhi. "The future of advertising is in digital,” he avers, confirming that most clients want a presence in the electronic media.

A view of the office

"One of our first projects was creating the brand identity for Zarina Screwvala’s NGO (non-governmental organization) Swades Foundation,” reveals the ad man. Particularly proud of being involved in the re-launch of the Godrej group’s venerable Nav-Tal lock, Hodiwala says that "heritage isn’t what we had to play up. That would be easy.” Communicating the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of the new avatar of the "over 80-year-old product was paramount.” An obvious admirer of the Godrej group, the business house he partially serviced in his earlier stint in JWT, he calls the conglomerate "a front-runner in design innovations.” Underdog was also involved in a project to launch Tata’s digital health platform’s brand identity, but Hodiwala cannot provide details as they are still bound by a confidentiality agreement. Despite winning the BookMyShow account while competing against 17 other contenders and the Godrej Nav-Tal campaign where several larger agencies were in the fray, Hodiwala says he cannot recall any major ‘aha moment’ since setting up Underdog. It’s been a period of understated joy, he says about the last 24 months.

Samples of work from Underdog

Among the awards he considers the most memorable he has won for his agencies is the JWT campaign for The Times of India’s Lead India campaign, which won both the Integrated Advertising award as well as the Grand Prix at Cannes ad festival in the direct category. The campaign set out to unearth young, committed future leaders, he reiterates. Also, proud of his work for The Times of India’s Teach India campaign, he informs us that it was a "writer’s dream to conceive the campaign for so noble a cause” (teaching spoken English to the disadvantaged).
"Abiding interest for almost every aspect of life, be it music, literature, cinema or sports,” is what drives Hodiwala. He explains that for a "creative person the urge for inspiration is continuous and the more diverse your interests, the deeper your reservoir to bring out those ideas when you really need them.”
The advertising professional has worked in several large and small advertising agencies since he took his first leap of faith, including an agency called Zen "where I met my first real creative director, Murzban Shroff,” the now well-known author of Breathless in Bombay and Waiting for Jonathan Koshy (see "Writers have secrets …,” Parsiana, February 7, 2016). Labeling Shroff an insanely good, creative person and an inspiring spirit to learn from, he says that they shared the same sensibility and, despite having worked for less than two years together, "are thick as thieves to this day.”
The elder child of late Sam, who retired from Western Railway, and Khurshid, a homemaker, he says his early life in Bulsar was a world far away from where he finds himself now. Schooled in St. Joseph’s in the South Gujarat city, he later finished his graduation in physics in 1990 from B. K. M. Science College, Bulsar, and his management degree in 1994 in materials management from the Institute of Management and Research in Jalgaon. Brother Navroze is in the same industry and works as a media director in Group M. Married for just under 10 years to Anahita, who Vistasp calls "my most constructive critic,” a doctor specializing in microbiology and a professor at the MGM (Mahatma Gandhi Memorial) Medical College and Hospital (see "Outstanding scientist,” Events and Personalities, Parsiana, February 21, 2016). Calling each other their respective bouncing boards, the Hodiwalas are parents to eight-year-old Mehran "who makes coming back early from work an incentive without compare.”

To the advertising professional, religion is an intensely private affair. Being a lover of history, he has read "more than my share of Zoroastrian/Persian history and the tenets of our religion.” Hodiwala says that he takes quiet pride in being born in a community that is supposedly progressive, qualifying that "as time goes by, I am not entirely sure about that.” Calling himself spiritual by nature, he visits the Thana agiary near his home every day, to "have my one-on-one with Ahura Mazda, a relationship that exists not out of fear but out of the depth of gratitude that I experience in the way my life has turned out.”
Seeing us off at the door of the buzzing office, he speaks about moving out of the comfort of a cushy job: "When you are on your own you just cannot afford to fail. At the same time, you have the flexibility to say no to relationships you are not interested in.” In this phase in his life, he is the "happiest I have been in the last 10 years.”