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Lofted in his stylish office on Bloor Street in Toronto, John Farquhar, president of Young & Rubicam Canada, looks downright vigorous as he discusses life at y&r and the current state of the Canadian advertising business.

‘I guess I’ve been doing this for about 18 years now,’ Farquhar begins. ‘I actually started out as a bright young account executive in an agency called Ronalds Reynolds, and in a very short period of time realized that I wasn’t very good at it. There were other people inside the agency that, from my perspective, seemed to be having a whole lot more fun than I was.’

The fabulously fun folk Farquhar speaks of were the people in the creative department. And it didn’t take long for the young account executive to become a young creative guy.

‘I always had this interest in writing and I’d never had a great interest in getting up really early in the morning to go to work. It’s the closest thing to not really having a job at all. I get to go in and play every day,’ he says.

Farquhar rose through the creative ranks, holding several jobs at several agencies before finally settling in as co-group creative director at y&r five years ago. David Adams, Farquhar’s partner in previous times, joined him in the move. At y&r it didn’t take Farquhar long to rise up the ladder. Three years ago, he and Adams were named creative directors and this past spring Farquhar was appointed president of Y&R Canada.

‘Of the top 10 or 15 agencies in Canada, this is the only one that has a creative guy as president,’ Farquhar says, noting that ‘some of the very best agencies in the world are run by creative guys.’

Being president of a major agency presented a necessary return to some of the business sensibilities Farquhar employed in his previous incarnation as an account executive. However, he is quick to underline that he wanted to be just ‘a slightly more influential version of [his] former self.’

To accomplish this, Farquhar employed a system of empowerment throughout the agency, spreading out the business responsibilities among the talent contained within.

‘It’s very much bringing that group in and having them run a lot of the day-to-day operations of the agency so I can have this psychotic focus on what the product output is,’ he says.

For Farquhar, it ‘is very important for the end product [that y&r staff] understand, are interested and motivated, and just get their jollies out of advertising the same way I do.’

Farquhar believes his management style will help keep the y&r team together. ‘I’m a huge believer in ‘You hire stars and get out of their way.’ ‘

More than empowerment, the president has made several other changes to the way y&r operates.

‘When David [Adams] and I came into this agency, it had a very strong account, strategic focus. And a lot of very good accounts and clients in here. But creatively it was pretty lackluster – it had a long way to go,’ he explains.

‘What we did when we came in was set it up the way the best agencies I’ve worked in were set up. Instead of people reporting to people, reporting to people, we set it up so that if you’re a writer, you write. If you’re an art director, you art direct. And that is your job. You work in teams and you’re responsible for great work. And, strangely enough, it brought a great clarity of purpose to people. In the past, people were spending more time in meetings than on work.’

In particular, Farquhar cites his time at MacLaren McCann as ‘a great experience.’ In fact, he has taken some of the best elements of that environment and applied them to his new one.

‘I wanted to recreate the kind of environment where if you walk down the halls and you’ve done a great piece of work, it’s like you cured cancer. If you walk down the halls and you’ve done a bad piece of work, you are a pariah. People are throwing rocks at you from their offices. And you know it. So there’s a real competitive nature to the quality of work that comes out. You’re trying to outdo the guys down the hall.’

Farquhar is particularly proud of several campaigns that have come out of y&r during his tenure. He points to a campaign for Banff Ice Vodka with creative based on the catch phrase ‘A Smooth Vodka from a Rough Place.’ Also, he refers to a series of ads for Square One mall in Mississauga, Ont., featuring construction workers in drag. This campaign was designed to communicate that the mall was under construction while pointing to all the ‘fine accoutrements, fashions and accessories that are available at Square One.’

Above all, Farquhar loves y&r’s AGF Mutual Funds campaign (featuring Spiderman, Gumby and Pokey and Quasi Modo, all in retirement). ‘We built huge awareness for [agf],’ Farquhar says. ‘We lost the account [to Chiat Day] about six months ago and we’re still kicking ourselves about it because they were a great deal of fun to work on.’ Farquhar feels y&r broke ground with the agf campaign, using a strategy based on the understanding that agf is not selling mutual funds but rather retirement. Even after the success of the campaign, Farquhar says, ‘I think the rest of the mutual fund industry still doesn’t get it.’

As for the commercial production industry, Farquhar says it has come a long way. ‘The production capabilities in Canada are quantum leaps, better than when I started in the business. I think the quality of our creative is, at times, not up to the quality of the productions that are being done out there.’

Part of the improvement, he says, is the quality of the helmers available. ‘We have our choice of the best national and international directors out there.’

On this topic, Farquhar takes time to respond to the endless complaints from Canadian spot shops and directors that agencies are ignoring homegrown talent.

‘Never. It is based on the reel. I don’t care where people come from. Are they right for the kind of commercial you’re trying to put together? Or are they so wrong for it they’re right? Sometimes you go against type, just so you can get an interesting look.

‘The flip side,’ he continues, ‘is that production companies spend a whole lot of time thrusting international directors on us. And it’s very alluring. Junior creative teams will look at reels and they’ll see productions that are worth $900,000, knowing full well they’ve got $150,000 to shoot this commercial – but boy, did he ever make that million dollars look unbelievable! It’s easy to be dazzled.’ Farquhar, who calls y&r an ‘idea factory,’ says his goal is ‘to make brands famous. People want to be associated with famous brands. And I always find that popular, likable brands are going to sell more than unpopular, unliked brands.’ *