From his early days at Saatchi & Saatchi to his work on the Labour Party Political Broadcasts, the CEO and founder of MurphyCobb Associates looks back on his proudest work as part of LBB’s The Work That Made Me series
Pat Murphy is a highly experienced ex C-suite advertising executive, public speaker, podcast host, and founder and CEO of global advertising consultancy MurphyCobb Associates (MCA), who has built an award-winning career in advertising production for some of the world’s most iconic brands.
Pat sat down with LBB to discuss the art and artists that most influenced him and his work.
The ad/music video from my childhood that stays with me…
Well I was in my early teenage years, and I loved listening to the musical jingles in the ad-breaks. The incredible ones being made in the 70s and 80s by the likes of Johnny Johnson, Ronnie Bond, Crocodile, Jeff Wayne and many others just thrilled me.
The one that has always stuck out for me was Johnny’s ‘Beanz Meanz Heinz’ that still people can recall so well today.
The ad/music video/game/web platform that made me want to get into the industry…
I actually wanted to get into radio, and then whilst working at video and audio post production house Molinare, I saw so many other things being graded, edited and titled. The budgets were obviously really good so I thought actually I’d love to do this as well.
One thing stuck out whilst there was the amazing work being done for the BBC ‘Top of the Pops’ titles with the Paul Hardcastle music. It was so fresh and modern at that time and still stands up well today.
The creative work that I keep revisiting…
As I have a background in radio presenting as well as advertising, I love to listen to all genres of music. The one album I can keep playing and never get bored is Donald Fagen’s ‘The Nightfly’.
That amazing combo of jazz, R&B, and rock shaped my musical tastes early on. This kind of music ended up being in a new category called Yacht Rock which Fagen was very dismissive of and when they asked him on the HBO doc ‘Music Box – Yacht Rock: A DOCKumentary’ what he thought of that, he said ‘Oh yacht rock, well I tell you what: why don’t you go f*ck yourself?’ and then hung up.
My first professional project…
Really that would have been the opportunity to work on British Airways when I started at Saatchi & Saatchi. The first one was the TV ad ‘Red Eye’ and I still have the pre-pro book as a memento. I remember working with Sir Anthony Quayle to do the voice over. Wonderful man.
The piece of work that made me so angry that I vowed to never make anything like *that*…
Remember those Radion washing powder ads from about 1990? I think they were from Ogilvy if memory serves me right. Really really awful, they almost became good. I’d never put anything like that on my reel. Watch this and you’ll be able to hear the poor dubbing and sound mix. Ugh!!
The piece of work that still makes me jealous…
Well I am a sucker for simplicity. Leonardo Da Vinci said ‘simplicity is the ultimate sophistication’. This ad was a single take and the casting of Gregor Fisher along with the direction was just brilliant. It is of course Hamlet’s ‘Photobooth’. It makes me laugh every time and I wish I could have had it on my reel. Nothing has beaten this since in my view, even Cadbury Gorilla which I was involved in.
The creative project that changed my career…
Whilst at BDDH we were always trying to find ways to be more creative. So I was shown some scripts that a creative team had written, and I said ‘let’s just make them’. We didn’t have the client, which was Harley Davidson, but we managed to persuade Fred Warr in the King’s Road to lend us some bikes and we would use his name on the titles.
We showed them once in the cinema in Leicester Square, after which they got banned for being known as ‘yob advertising’. Big splash all over The Sun newspaper. It didn’t matter because we couldn’t afford any media and getting banned was the intention. It cost £500 for three cinema ads and it also picked up Gold at the British TV Advertising Awards as Best Ad of the Year.
The work that I’m proudest of…
Strangely not the one above, but doing all the Labour Party Political Broadcasts before Tony Blair’s first winning election. I got to work with all the big names – John Smith, John Prescott, Harriet Harman, Margaret Beckett, and Tony of course. We were making five minute masterpieces on a shoestring and we managed to blag all the help we could muster from the creative industries – great directors, editors, post production.
When John Smith died I was supposed to be travelling round Europe with him for the Euro Elections. Kevin Whately stepped in and I have fond memories of Kevin and our small team charging down the Calais train platform carrying aluminium cases full of kit. And yet another fine and charming gentleman. I did a Hitchcock on many of these PPB’s by always finding a way to be in the background.
I was involved in this and it makes me cringe…
It was for Wick Blau’ in Germany, cough sweets and one of the P&G brands when I was based in Frankfurt, Germany. We were using a production company in Hamburg, and the shoot was in South Africa.
All I can remember is how much fun I had with the producer Adrian Stoop and the team, but the ad was ‘einfach schrecklich’ – German for absolutely terrible. I don’t think the client ran it in the end, and I am not even going to see if it exists on YouTube to give you a link. My reputation is at stake.
The recent project I was involved in that excited me the most…
I am a great lover of technology, which is why I am actually quite excited about this time in the ad industry. In 2020, I was asked by the head of marketing excellence at Reckitt for a proposal to reduce production cost, reduce carbon footprint and find a way of doing better work. “What would be my solution?” she asked, not ever thinking I would put much thought into it.
Anyway, I returned a few weeks later and had done a tonne of homework around virtual production models and recommended an in-house team co-ordinating the bundling into Virtual Studios. The results blew people’s socks off and the team is still there today moving things forward in AI as well and having great success.