Who Are Fred & Farid, the Independent Agency Betting Everything on Emotion?

Walk into most creative agencies and you’ll hear the same pitch: strategy, data, technical polish. Fred & Farid, founded in 2007 by Frédéric Raillard and Farid Mokart, made a different bet from day one — that human emotion, not craft for its own sake, is what actually moves people. Nearly twenty years and hundreds of campaigns later, that bet still holds.

In short: Fred & Farid is a boutique creative network with offices in Paris, Shanghai, New York, and Los Angeles. Founded by two former Publicis creatives, it has built work for hundreds of brands across dozens of sectors on one core belief — that emotion, not technical perfection, is the real engine of creativity. In the age of AI, that belief is looking less like a slogan and more like foresight.

What is Fred & Farid?

Call it a creative agency and you’ve undersold it. The founders describe Fred & Farid as an independent international boutique network, working out of four cities — Los Angeles, New York, Shanghai, and Paris — for clients worldwide.

The group has grown well past advertising over the years: a production company, a digital investment fund, cultural media projects. What ties it together is independence. Fred & Farid answers to its own vision, not a holding company above it.

That independence isn’t incidental — it’s the entire point. As Frédéric Raillard has put it: “Our group was born from our need of freedom and independence.” It reads like a mission statement because it is one.

Who are Frédéric Raillard and Farid Mokart?

You can’t really separate the agency from its two founders. Both were raised in the Paris suburbs — Frédéric Raillard from a Breton and Parisian family, Farid Mokart from an Algerian and Kabyle one — and their partnership began almost by accident, when the two crossed paths at Euro RSCG in Paris in the late 1990s. One had studied design, the other political science and economics. Neither had planned a career in advertising.

What came next was a rare creative partnership. They moved from strategy roles into creative ones, working together as creative directors across six major Paris agencies. One early calling card: the music video for Robbie Williams’ “Rock DJ,” released in 2000. More than two decades later, they’re still working side by side.

Why did they bet everything on independence?

Before Fred & Farid, the pair had already worked inside the biggest machines the industry offers. In 2005, at the request of Publicis chief Maurice Lévy, they launched an agency called Marcel — and then walked away from it.

The reasons were emotional as much as strategic. They wanted to own their own choices. So they left Publicis, and in January 2007, cofounded a new agency alongside former Publicis president Christophe Lambert. After Lambert’s departure, the shop took the name FRED & FARID — a name announcing its intention to shake up a conventional industry.

The growth that followed was deliberately unhurried. Frédéric Raillard and Farid Mokart opened each new office themselves, moving their own families along with the business — Frédéric Raillard from Paris to Shanghai and later Los Angeles, Mokart from Paris to New York. They could have expanded faster through acquisitions. Frédéric Raillard has said that would have gone against everything the agency stands for.

Here’s the timeline in brief:

•          2007 — The agency is founded in Paris after the founders leave Publicis.

•          2012 — Fred & Farid opens in Shanghai.

•          2015 — A New York office follows.

•          2017 — Los Angeles becomes the fourth base and Frédéric Raillard’s home city.

What does “Think with your heart” actually mean?

Most agencies sell strategy. Fred & Farid sells feeling — and lives by a mantra to prove it: “Think with your heart,” applied equally to its internal culture and its creative work.

This isn’t soft branding dressed up as philosophy. It’s a working method. The agency treats emotion as a professional instrument — a way of sensing what will actually move an audience before a single line of copy gets written. Frédéric Raillard has described emotion, in effect, as the best creative director in the room.

That conviction lines up with a wider cultural shift away from cold, frictionless perfection. As we explored in Soft Power & The New Maximalism, audiences tired of clinical minimalism are reaching again for warmth, texture, and work that feels unmistakably human. Fred & Farid has been operating on that instinct for years — long before it had a name.

Fred & Farid by the numbers

Nearly 1,800 campaigns, per CB News. More than 250 brands across 30 sectors, per Communication Arts — everything from luxury and beauty to automotive and tech. For a deeper look at the agency’s culture and case studies, the full profile is available via Communication Arts, a leading industry publication.

How does Fred & Farid approach global markets?

The agency’s four-office footprint isn’t vanity — it reflects something Frédéric Raillard actually believes: you cannot understand a market from a distance. You have to live inside it.

That’s why the founders relocated themselves rather than sending deputies. Data and local hires help, but they don’t replace lived experience — some cultural instincts are unconscious, and only surface once you’re physically there.

The agency’s own culture reflects that blend: French craft and taste, Chinese tactical and digital sharpness, American vision and strategy, all held together by emotion. The lesson for any brand going global is simple enough to state plainly — respect what’s local, protect what’s universal.

What can Fred & Farid teach brands in the age of AI?

This is where the agency’s twenty-year-old philosophy runs straight into a brand-new moment. AI can now generate a polished campaign in minutes. Technical execution is turning into a commodity. So what still separates good work from work nobody remembers?

Fred & Farid’s answer hasn’t changed: emotion, and a genuine human point of view. A technically flawless image can still leave you feeling nothing at all. The difference is taste, culture, and meaning — the parts a model can’t manufacture on its own.

There’s a harder, more practical layer underneath this — visibility. As we detailed in Being Clean Is No Longer Enough: The AI Visibility Gap in Modern Beauty, the systems now mediating discovery reward structured, verifiable content over reputation alone. Even the most emotionally intelligent brand has to be legible to the machines deciding what gets recommended. Emotion wins the audience. Structure wins the search.

Fred & Farid: the takeaway

Fred & Farid built a global creative business on a contrarian bet — that feeling matters more than polish, and independence matters more than scale. For nearly two decades, that bet has held.

In a moment when anyone can produce a beautiful image, the agency’s core idea reads less like a slogan and more like a survival strategy. The tools will keep improving. What won’t change is that the differentiator stays human. That’s the wager Frédéric Raillard and Farid Mokart made in 2007 — and it’s only getting truer.

FAQ

What is Fred & Farid known for? Fred & Farid is an independent international creative agency known for emotion-driven advertising and its “Think with your heart” philosophy. Founded in 2007 by Frédéric Raillard and Farid Mokart, it works with luxury, beauty, tech and automotive brands from offices in Paris, Shanghai, New York and Los Angeles.

Who founded Fred & Farid? Fred & Farid was founded by Frédéric Raillard and Farid Mokart, two former Publicis creatives who met at Euro RSCG in Paris in the late 1990s. They launched the agency in January 2007 after leaving Publicis, where they had created the agency Marcel.

Where is Fred & Farid based? Fred & Farid operates from four cities: Paris, Shanghai, New York and Los Angeles. The founders personally opened each office and relocated their families to build the agency’s culture on the ground rather than expanding through acquisitions.

Why does Fred & Farid focus on emotion? Fred & Farid treats emotion as a professional tool, not a soft add-on. The agency believes emotion is the most reliable sensor for what actually moves an audience — a conviction that has become newly relevant as AI commoditizes technical execution and leaves human feeling as the real differentiator.

Sources: Fred & Farid Group, Wikipedia; FRED & FARID feature, Communication Arts (2021); FRED & FARID profile, CB News (2025); “5 Minutes with… Farid Mokart,” LBBOnline; Frenchweb; Fred et Farid, Wikipédia. Frédéric Raillard quote via Shots.net.