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Brand guru Vahid Mehrinfar looks to the future

Kishore Singh

Taken out of context, Vahid Mehrinfar's brand equity, as he sees himself, could put other spin doctors to shame.

Among the many labels this 'futurist' or 'brand futurist' uses for his own work are 'mesmerising;' immodestly (though accurately) he admits to being 'handsome' and, in the past, 'a playboy;' he credits God for picking him out 'to be somebody special.'

Guruspeak? Another road show for self-promotion? It could easily be, reading about Bahrain's adopted child who wears many hats all at the same time - his work involves advertising, brand architecture, imaging and internalisation, signages, environment and interior design, industrial design, event management, product development, packaging design, business image consultancy and (phew!) aspirational seminars.

Yet, it's earned him a $10.5-million turnover, and made him the Gulf's second-largest media buying agency (the largest, which he refuses to name, is an affiliate of McCann Erickson).

And Vahid, in Lucknow to talk to students on one of his aspirational seminars - "I'm losing $30,000 every day that I'm here" - is also launching Brand V here. "What I want in India," he says, "is five top clients."

Vahid, who began his own agency in Bahrain with a team of Indians, has a healthy respect for their work, and for the sophisticated Indian market. "But there's no sex appeal in brand communication here," says Vahid, "and India's hungry for imagery."

Here, it's important to actually understand what Vahid does. "I'm a brand now," he says. This brand, associated with media, design and architecture, says of his work, in turn, for others: "I don't make brands, I create brands." And this is where his "futurist" strategy comes in to play.

"Research," he tries to describe his process of "revelation", as distinct from "intellectation" by others, "is available to everybody. All information is available, but it's intangible. I predict practical, workable but futuristic scenarios based on a brand's past, but assimilating its future. I invent a future for my clients."

And how does he do this? "Predictions are personality-driven," he says, "and my intuition is very sharpened." Gutfeel strategies aside, Vahid owes his current business profile, at least in part, to his work in the US where besides training as a designer, he was influenced, then trained under futurist painter Syd Mead.

In time, his work surpassed Mead's, and he was hired by corporations and agencies to literally "draw" the future. These commissions - now celebrated works of art - resulted in his brush with fame, but he was forced to return to the Gulf for personal reasons where, in 1991, 'full of ideas' he set up a small creative shop. Having survived difficult political times in the region, he says his business soon 'became formidable. I developed a culture, not just a company.'

Today, Vahid is hopeful of making his first strides into India which, along with Iran he considers the greatest Asian markets in the future.

Will he succeed? "I understand India more than any other foreigner," he says. Brand V forecasting is up for grabs for anyone with the right referrals.

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