Vale Steve Browning – one of the very best in the West
The WA advertising industry has been shocked by news of the death this week of Steve Browning, one of Perth’s finest ever copywriters.
Browning had travelled to the UK to see his ailing, elderly father and suffered a heart attack while there. He was in a coma for two weeks and passed away on Wednesday night (Perth time).
Starting in advertising at London’s Benton & Bowles in 1982, Browning came to Australia in 1987 and did stints at Marketforce, JMA Ogilvy & Mather (where he succeeded Mike Edmonds as Creative Director) and Jenkin Shorter FCB.
In June 1993 he co-founded the agency with which he would become synonymous – Vinten Browning – with art director Wayne Vinten.
Vinten Browning quickly established itself as one of Perth’s most creative outfits. A dominant year in 1997 saw it named Campaign Brief’s Agency of the Year, and Browning himself was named Ad Person of the Year. It was at VB that he created his most famous and awarded campaign for Chippers Funeral Directors.
Amongst a string of awards, Browning won Silver and Bronze at AWARD for his copywriting on Chippers, which catapulted both the agency and him onto the national stage creatively.
While Chippers was his best-known work, Radio was his favourite medium. He won the Southern Cross Austereo Radio Writers Award three times, in 1997, 1998 and 2005. In March this year, he reflected on the value of the Award and his love of Radio as part of the tribute by past winners.
Browning scaled back his work with Vinten Browning and eventually left the partnership in 2006 to devote more time to other creative writing projects. While he pursued those, he was still actively working in the industry as a freelancer and with some direct clients as Writing by Steve Browning. He was also a sometime tutor at AdSchool, and came along to a couple of Campaign Brief ’s Legendary Lunches where he was always a popular catch-up for old friends.
Unfailingly polite, humble, intelligent, talented, dedicated and with the driest sense of humour, Browning was an esteemed colleague and a revered member of the Perth industry’s creative community.
His untimely passing is keenly felt by all who knew him.
8 Comments
A great, great man. One of the last great wordsmiths. I’ll miss his charm, his very dry wit and his treasured friendship.
My sincere condolences to Steve’s family and friends. Respected as a writer. Admired as a man. He will be remembered warmly.
Too sad. Too soon. Too bad. A gentleman, a scholar, a wit, mild, unassuming, self effacing, articulate, erudite, kind, generous, a superb creative mind, an outstanding writer – there are not positive adjectives that can do justice to this great of Australian advertising.
Devastated to see this.
It’s been a while since a Caxtons.
But one of the highlights of every one I attended was an inspiring, insightful, surprising or just plain funny conversation with Steve.
An awesome bloke. My deepest sympathies to his family.
He was a wonderful person with a great wit. What a shit year.
One of the best.
So sad to hear. Loved his work. Condolences to his family.
I’m still shocked by this news. I can’t quite believe it. He was a writer’s writer, a great friend, and incredibly funny. I always felt he would have fitted in perfectly on a show like Not The Nine O’Clock News.