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John Farquhar

Brendan Seery

To many, John Farquhar was the quintessential “grumpy old man” – stuck in the past, always whingeing, always criticising.

Yet, as many coke-sniffing ponytails came and went in the advertising industry, crusty John never changed his tune. And, to those who would listen – as opposed to take umbrage at his criticism – he had a deep knowledge and love for advertising, which translated into priceless advice.

Ten years ago, when we interviewed him, he said: “The biggest problem these days is that people ignore the basics. Don’t break the rules unless you know the basics. What I’ve always said to the creative team is: ‘If it was your money, would you spend it on what you just worked on?’”

That’s as true today as it was then – perhaps even more appropriate as brands start demanding more bang for their buck from traditional advertising agencies and look at alternative ways of getting marketing messages across.

And anyone in the industry could do a lot worse than ponder Farquhar’s other comment: “Advertising is the shop window of the brand. Communication is very simple... raise the image of the brand so that it intrigues the consumer into buying your brand, even if it means putting your product on something unfashionable like a matchbox.”

So, when Farquhar died this past weekend, a few months short of his 84th birthday, South African advertising lost a straight-talking critic.

Advertising and marketing were his life.

In a submission for a book by Affinity Publishing, Farquhar said: “I don’t like talking about myself.”

He grew up, in his words, “on the wrong side of the railway tracks” in Cape Town, “which obviously meant I had no social introductions”.

He started off, after matric, with the then PN Barrett (PNB) agency in Cape Town as a “checking clerk”. The job was to collect the newspapers and make sure that the ads appeared on due date as called for by the copy instructions and that the size was correct.

“My desk was in the cellar of the building and next to the water pump, so you can say I started at the bottom of advertising.”

With hard work and study, he moved himself up, at a time when Cape Town was the main advertising centre.

He launched his own agency, Farquhar & Amis (with Peter Amis) which, he wrote, “built a reputation for taking losing brands and turning them into winners”.

He then moved across to marketing to become marketing manager of Gilbey Santhagens, a liquor company. He moved to Johannesburg and joined the Caxton group to manage its promotions division. Advantage magazine, with him as founding editor, was launched in 1994.

After stepping down from Advantage at age 80, he continued to write for Marketingweb, “promoting good advertising and its value as a business tool”.

He added: “I can spot ads designed to win awards from a mile away. These ads undermine the value of advertising as a business tool. Sadly the quality of advertising has declined from its heyday during the ’80s and ’90s. Today it is but a faint reminder of where it was. Advertisers are no longer true entrepreneurs. They are more concerned with their stock price. There very few pros left in the business.”

His final remark was: “So I will continue to niggle the award makers. I hope to do this until the day I die, with my boots on.”

And that’s what he did. Even when he was battling cancer in his last few months, he found time to make our end-of-year lunch. And he still had pertinent points to make about advertising.

Advertising guru Chris Moerdyk, in a tribute on bizcommunity.com, recalled lunches past with Farquhar, “listening to you rant on about how, for the past two millennia, there had not been a single creative in the entire global ad industry who owned more than a fraction of a brain cell. How all advertising was crap”.

Moerdyk went on: “A lot of people, like me, really loved the way you were not only opinionated but opinionated with such breathtaking pompous elegance. A lot of people, mostly ad agency creatives, didn’t like you one bit and one could only admire the way in which you really didn’t give a toss about your detractors.”

But, above all, Farquhar “set some fine examples”, said Moerdyk.

“You taught many of us that the important thing was to speak your mind and have a firm opinion. You taught many of us how to create dialogue, to raise burning issues and to slaughter holy cows. To throw bricks through windows and not hang around for an angry crowd to gather but rather start looking for another window.”