“He was kind and one of a kind”: Vale Grant Booker, beloved creative director, consummate raconteur, australian advertising legend

The advertising industry will be saddened to hear of the passing of the legendary Grant Booker, the highly accomplished and awarded creative director, who died today, aged 68, after a short battle with cancer.

Grant Booker was born on August 12, 1950 in Christchurch, New Zealand. An art director by trade, he began his advertising career in Melbourne in the 80s, working at Fortune, MDA, Mojo, FCB as well as his own agency Booker & Booth.

Booker was integral in the launch of Le Specs and AAMI, both very successful campaigns still running today.

In 1998 he joined M&C Saatchi, Sydney where he played a key role on accounts such as Qantas, The Australian, The ABC, Vodafone, Tip Top and New Zealand Tourism – one of the most successful tourism launches in the world.

Booker joined BMF Sydney in 2005 where his creative responsibilities were Lion Nathan, Newspaperworks, Diary Farmers & Austar.

In 2008, Booker started his own consultancy In Our Time, with a client list that included Jalna Yoghurt, Changs and The Newspaper Works. In 2012 he formed creative consultancy Grown Ups and in 2015 he formed content production company Cain & Able. Most recently he has been trading under the company name Grant Booker Creative.

Over the years, his campaigns have been awarded at Cannes, AWARD, Clio, Caxton, Irish, Folio, ATV and MADC Awards.

Booker leaves behind daughters Chloe and Alexandria and grandson Theodore, and long-term partner Toni Higginbotham.

The charmed life of Grant Booker will be celebrated at SGEGS Great Hall, St Peters Lane, Darlinghurst at 10.30am Friday, April 5. And afterwards at the Lord Dudley, 236 Jersey Road, Paddington, doing what Booker loved best: laughs over beers at the pub.

Tom McFarlane, regional chief creative officer of M&C Saatchi, salutes his old friend:

I first got to know Grant at my wedding.
He wasn’t invited.
He came along with somebody who was.
The truth is, he never really waited to be invited.
He’d just turn up.
And nobody ever minded, because the party was always more fun when he did.
At the wedding he wore a loud pink suit.
Which didn’t come as a surprise.
Everything about him was loud.
Not the least his voice, which could be heard ubiquitously bellowing around every ad-land pub in Melbourne.
We became mates, despite the fact that he barracked for the hated Carlton and I was an avid Pies fan.
Over a beer one night at the Bot, he announced he was going to live in Sydney.
Coincidentally, I was quietly contemplating the same move.
So there we both were suddenly in Sin City.
Chameleon that he was, he quickly switched his AFL allegiance to the Swans and began moving with ease in all sorts of circles beyond advertising.
You see, Grant was a consummate raconteur.
He could yarn about anything – horses, politics, history and of course food.
About a year after M&C Saatchi began, I got him in to freelance for a few weeks.
He stayed for a few years.
And during that time he created some beautiful campaigns.
Always intelligent.
Always lovingly crafted.
And always, there was a cantankerous moment along the way.
But that was Booker.
Right now I’m really missing that big loud voice.

Ted Horton, founder of Big Red, sent us this tribute:

I was friends with Grant Booker for 37 years.
I went to his wedding. He went to mine. It was that sort of friendship.
But, I wasn’t his best friend.
That honour was proudly shared by others, like Joe Connor, Tom McFarlane, John Hartigan and the late, great Bill Leak.
He was always everything a friend should be.
His best friends loved him, his regular friends loved him, his ex’s loved him, his colleagues loved him, his clients loved him and, most importantly, his children loved him.
We all loved him. We still do.
For those who knew him, his passing can never erase the sound of his laughter, the sparkle of his grin and the warmth of his embrace.
Grant loved life, and in doing so, brought great joy to ours.
He was kind and one of a kind.
He was ‘Booker’.
And we were blessed to have known him.

Close friend Scott Whybin sent this tribute:

When Booker gave me his bear hug cuddle he made an often cold industry feel much warmer.
When he gave me his ritual kiss on my forehead, it was instinctive.
He wouldn’t even remember doing it.
Like most things he did in life.
But I remembered it.
It made me feel like a really lucky man.
But he always did that, for a lot of other very lucky people.
Rare, indeed.
Right now my friend, I’m crying tears of Heineken, that could fill a brewery.
Rest Grant. But never stop going to lunch.
After all, God’s restaurants have a much better view.

Tom McFarlane on Booker’s creative legacy

Below are a series of print ads Grant did for The Australian’s Review of Books.
It was a delightfully simple idea.
Find a quote from famous writers, about writing (and reading).
Working with Baz Beckley, they found a brilliant, but somewhat eccentric typographer tucked away somewhere down the South Coast and together created this beautifully crafted series.
I seem to recall they did well at the Caxtons.
Whatever, Grant was rightly quite proud of them.
Of course, they were right up his alley.
He loved working on The Australian.
He’d hang around down at the News Ltd offices at Kippax Street for hours and then end up at the old Aurora (a horrible pub) drinking and feeding the pokies with cartoonist Bill Leak and our Warren Brown.

PS His most famous TVC was the award-winning Post Office ad – “Don’t wrap it. PostPak it.”
It was the one with the bones.
He was very talented.
Not just a party boy.

The charmed life of Grant Booker will be celebrated at SGEGS Great Hall, St Peters Lane, Darlinghurst at 10.30am Friday, April 5. And afterwards at the Lord Dudley, 236 Jersey Road, Paddington, doing what Booker loved best: laughs over beers at the pub.