JAMES McGRATH TO DEPART PATTS FOR CLEMENGER MELBOURNE ECD GIG
James McGrath has resigned from George Patterson Y&R Melbourne to take up the ECD gig at Clemenger BBDO Melbourne. At this stage, no other creatives are moving with him, including their two star teams, Ant Keogh and Grant Rutherford (Carlton “Big Ad”), and Ben Coulson and Josh Stephens (VB “Boony”). But some industry pundits predict it will only be a matter of time before they do, having moved to Patts soon after McGrath joined from Y&R four years ago.
Clemenger Communications Chairman, Robert Morgan, confessed that he is “over the moon” about McGrath’s move to Clemenger BBDO/Melbourne: “The combination of James McGrath as Executive Creative Director and Peter Biggs as Managing Director will make Clemenger BBDO/Melbourne unstoppable,” he said.
Peter Biggs said: “This is an historic day for our agency in Melbourne. We have always sought to hire the best creative talent in the world and with the hiring of James we are continuing in that tradition. I have every confidence that Clemenger BBDO/Melbourne – which already has a renowned creative product – will, with James providing creative leadership, reach new heights of creative excellence. I can’t wait for James to start and for us to begin our partnership.”
McGrath, who was with George Patterson Partners and then with George Patterson Y&R for four years, said: “I am very excited about joining Clemenger BBDO. Clemenger BBDO is one of the great Melbourne and Australian advertising brands and I’ve always had huge respect for them. I admire the way that they have always put the creative product first and I look forward to keeping that focus. Collaboration, to me, is the key to building a great agency and, in turn, great work. It’s what has worked so perfectly with PattsY&R Managing Director, Anthony Heraghty, and in Peter Biggs I see the same possibility – which is an enduring partnership built on trust and openness, externally focused on our clients rather than internal issues.”
McGrath’s start date at Clemenger BBDO/Melbourne is yet to be confirmed.
92 Comments
ant and grant are already there!
So where does that leave Emma and Tony?
Right:New CEO, appointed with the blessing of the Hamish and Matt Show in Sydney.ECD gone, with Matt getting on the front foot in pr releases.I’d say that the Y&R Sydney cultural takeover of Patts Melbourne is just about complete.ScaryGood may have been the mantra of the Patts Melb boys, but on Y&R/Patts Sydney’s track record, Scary = Bad. Still, it was good while it lasted.
Clemenger Creative Department: Be afraid. Be Very afraid.
The best CD in the region by a mile. What a score for BBDO.
Damn. And here I was thinking there was a real dynasty building up in Melbourne. How long before all the boys go with him?Although then they’d be at Clems. Ugh.
That’s a surprise announcement. Does that mean Emma will be merely CD from now on? How will progressive McGrath tolerate old school Mather?
Put it this way. Matt & Hamish don’t see themselves as running an ad-agency. To them it’s all cold cash.As such, see a bunch of older creatives being dusted off and placed into non threatening positions within Patts Melbourne.Lots of nodding heads in meetings and a desire to pitch for everything. Governement, gambling, the fur-trade. Whatever.They’re simply not bothered by the creative output. To them it’s a byproduct of the business.Clems have scored the absolute motherlode.Good luck to them. And I fucking hope CUB realises that the grass is much fucking greener over there.
Patts really has got that smell of urine about it.
Can I just announce that I’d like to give Matt a pair of swollen jubblies?
This means that James McGrath is one step closer to retirement. Great!
Wasn’t Ben signed up at Clems anyway?
Russel Howcroft in. James McGrath out. Says it all really.
8.44 Well put.
This story definitely beat “DDB hires another junior team”. What a piece of news. That Y&R merger spelled disaster for Patts. Thankfully they already had the ‘Big Ad’ under their belts before Hamish arrived. Besides, globally, BBDO is a much better network. Good luck to them all. Good move.
who’s james mcgrath?
ben refused a clems post, as did ant & grant. $ were chucked at them to stay at Patts. Don’t know where that leaves everything now……..
Good luck to James, and hope CUB moves with him. About time clients realised that Patts Y&R, Hamish and Matt, are all about profit, not good advertising or good people. They will stick another piece of dead wood in melbourne who does as they’re told, and asks no questions.
Man the lifeboats. Women and children first, then Tony, Emma & Ron in that order. I give it till Christmas.
So,everyone’s expecting the kiddies to follow daddy to Clems. If they had half a brain between them – they’d realise clients like Fosters come around once in a lifetime and stay exactly where they are. But hey, they’ve followed McGrath for boiled lollies before.
Hey 4:23. Didn’t see Hamish or Matt standing in the way of Cascade, Cougar, Boonie etc. etc. and all the other stuff done since the evil empire took over. And what’s wrong with making a buck anyway? Most of the Clems creative department would’ve left years ago if it wasn’t for the Clems share scheme. And as for ‘CUB’ moving to Clems – that’s as likely as you being anyone of any significance!
$100 bucks says the PattsY&R mess is 10 times easier to fix than the bloody disaster O”Sullivan left Clemengers in – they’re still trying to fix that 2+ years later [and as we all know, there’re still a few more bodies to be dragged out of that train wreck]
Patts will have a contract stipulation that doesn’t allow James to poach any of his teams under ANY circumstance for at least a year – and you don’t fuck with WPP – even if they ‘decided to leave’ it’s still contractually iffy.The boys wil probably decide to stick around for at least a few months on the big wages until the dust settles, or until they get utterly sick to death of the nodding dog that Matt plonks above them.Christ, talk about killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
Are Ron and Emma over the moon too – or over the hill???
I wonder if Mr.Biggs bothered to tell Ron about James’ appointment so he too could ‘be over the moon’! Rob Morgan was right. The day they appointed James McGrath was ‘an historic day for our agency in Melbourne’. It’s the day Clemengers treated Ron Mather worse than Hamish ever treated James McGrath.
I wonder if Matt & Hamish realise just how they’re viewed by their peers.Then again, would they care?
russel howcroft or more candidly whycroft in….and talent out.haven’t we seen this somewhere before.patts are over now seriously.
“ben refused a clems post, as did ant & grant. $ were chucked at them to stay at Patts. Don’t know where that leaves everything now…” Allow me to tell you, my dear 4:06pm:They’ll milk the cash cow dry until the new and improved Clems offers roll-in. That will certainly happen once James has his way with Clems existing creative department, if you know what I mean. It’s just a matter of time. History has a funny way of repeating itself….
6.25 I reckon you are getting a bit Mafia on us. Once James has the dough to bring the boys in, they’re gone. And there’s nothing no one can do about it. Not even WPP. He took them out of Y&R once already, remember? And he will do it again. James is nothing without those dudes, and he knows it. And Clemenger knows it. Better still, they know it too.
James is only as good as his creative teams, so this is no big loss for Patts on it’s own. Plus, apparently Ant Shannon will be the new CD there with the mandate to ‘bring the band back together’.
Ant, Grant, Ben & Josh have one every fuck’n major international & local show in the business (except the few crumbs Saachi still pick up). They can go wherever they bloody please, don’t just expect it to be St Kilda Rd. I saw 2 of them talking to the Wieden global scout at the Majestic in Cannes!
Can you still give Patts Melb agency of the year without James? On merit they have easily given Saatchi a flogging this year. Please not another bloody Noby front cover!!!
For those poor kiddies who haven’t been able to fill in the gaps, here as near as dammit is the story: Heraghty leaves Patts to become the CUB/Foster’s client.Heraghty had a great working relationship with James McGrath as MD and CD repectively at Patts and tells McGrath that he (Heraghty) would work with McGrath again in a heartbeat if McGrath ever went out on his own.Rob Morgan, a clever bloke with his ear permanently glued to the ground, gets wind of this, and with the Foster’s business in mind, poaches James McGrath. Of course, after the dust settles he’ll eventually get McGrath’s trophy creative department as a bonus. Of course there’ll be a bit of explaining to do to Clems staff and clients…keen Clems watchers will recall that only weeks ago they announced with some considerable fanfare that the creative department would be restructured into 3 creative groups with 3 group heads, one of whom was to be the deposed Emma and another was to be the prodigal son, Tony Greenwood!One can only guess at what Our Tone is making of all this. Or Roger Hovercraft, for that matter.Of course Mather wasn’t in the loop, just like Emma wasn’t in the loop last time Rob Morgan had a brainwave: to get Mather in as Chairman and secret Creative Director last year!But this one looks like a real stroke of genius on Morgan’s part. Possibly expensive in the short term, but damned clever. You’ve got to take your hat off to him.Truth be known, Ron has been a bit of a disaster – presiding over the loss of numerous Clems staff and clients, but not attracting the significant new business that was expected. So he’s expendable. Senior industry players will no doubt be experiencing a feeling of deja vu at this point, remembering events 20 or so years ago at Saatchi’s Melbourne…oh, yes, remember the train wreck that was Saatchi’s Melbourne? And who presided over that little disaster?So no crocodile tears, 6:33.He who lives by the sword and all that.So that’s this little fairy tale concluded for now.
Give agency of the year to Patts, definitely. They created an ad that redefined advertising in this country. Not scams for United Nations or OLAY.
Exactly 11:46. How narrow minded all of us can be. These guys can go anywhere in the world they wish to go now and here we are expeculating if they will follow James tail and go to Clemenger! How parrochial.
Mr Morgan and the lawn bowls team over at Clems have masterminded many little car key swapping games to win business before. Some have worked, some didn’t and some worked and they wished they didn’t. If we think one CD, with some recently won metal under his arm (arriving without the team’s that did it), is a stroke of genius, then I guess it is time to change ends….rum in a seven thanks…mmm nice creams…
Worth adding is that fact that Ron was not a great success during his short stint at Grey Melbourne too. He came in with a lot of retro ideas, changed around teams needlessly, fired people, nearly lost the agency the TAC account, then, after he’d achieved nothing, left for a better job at Clems. Our industry is hilarious sometimes. It’s amazing how many people go on to better jobs without prospective employers checking with their previous employers (In Ron’s case, Grey and The Palace).
It’s not a bad theory 1.04, but I think it’s all a little neat.My take on it is that both Heraghty and McGrath arrived individually at the conclusion that the Patts Melbourne they both worked for was about to be culturally swallowed up by the Sydney crew – purveyors of possibly Australia’s crappest big agency advertising with the exception of Singos and JWT.Let’s not forget that McGrath ran away from Y&R once before – and now he’s done so again.Undoubtedly, Clems will try to score Fosters. But that won’t be so easy – it’s a pretty rusted on account.The bigger story in all this, as 1.04 points out, is the unseemly backflip Clems Melb has done over its creative management.Slimy, opportunistic and immoral are three words that spring to mind. One can only hope this turns to complete shit for Mr. Morgan and Co.Big agencies run by big egos who’ve never written an ad in their lives… fuck em. The sooner all the best creative people wake up to themselves and do their own shit in their own agencies, the better.What the fuck do Fosters get from Patts/Y&R that they couldn’t get from Keogh&Rutherford Inc…?Nothing.(actually, the boys should call their agency RANT – Rutherford/Ant…)Why the fuck do the people who actually do the work have to live under the yoke of backstabbing, slimy beancounters?They don’t.Fucken sick of the whole WPP phenomenon. Fuck the whole fuckin lot of em.Cunts.
I’m bored of this thread now. So try this. It’s fucking amazing.Get 500g small peeled prawns.Throw them in a pan with olive oil, garlic and some chilli flakes.Low heat for a while.Zest a lemon.Cook some spaghetti.Throw some sundried tomatoes in a blender (about six)Add tomatoes to prawns.- And a small glass of white wine.When spaghetti’s done, mix with prawns, sauce etc.Throw in a small handful of chopped rocket.Mix around.Squeeze in the lemon juice.Add to plate.Sprinkle a bit of rocket onto the plates.Then the zest over the top of that.If that doesn’t get you fucking laid, I don’t know what will.
Who’s going to take McGrath’s place? I doubt Ant Shannon will move from Grey. And what about the Furnace????
What about The Furnace?
All they need is one of those American nodding head dolls.Pull the string and hear a variety of positive comments:”I couldn’t have put it better myself..””Sure, the ad should really be set in a pub.””Research? Why not.””Why yes, that certainly changes the paradigm.”And many, many more.
I give the single greatest spaghetti recipe and none of you fuckers can be bothered to comment.Well, you can forget my meatballs then.
Nice recipe 9.47 but shouldn’t you be finishing up that Myer catalogue.
Jay?
Maybe they should have GPY&R Idol where the ad industry can all SMS vote for who you think should be the new CD.
That is a cracker of a recipe 9.47.
Myer Catalogue? Pah. I’ve got a sexy little Indonesian girl who does all that shit.
furbyforpatts.com.au
Here’s a recipe:Go to market and buy a nice piece of Australian agency.Strip off all the fat in Sydney but keep the delicious bits in Melbourne.Soak in beer for two years.Open one jar of Matt McGrath, remember not to pour in too much or it goes poisonous.Let Matt soak in for a few months until you can taste it in melbourne.Rip off the head.Pull out the guts.Add some lemons and allow to burn slowly.
Furby’s no good for Patts. They win awards for real work on real clients. and they pay the directors.
Phil Ingevics is the right man for the job.
Very clever, Al Qaeda. No one saw this attack coming.
What better way to get Ant and Ruther in the golden handcuffs than to make them CDs.
Furby at Patts. Now that’s funny.
fuck off dodds, you hack.
spillerforpatts.org
Furby at Patts. Oooh, stop it 6:37, you’re killing me. Yes, it’s too ridiculous to entertain, even for a second. Yet it’s precisely what agency management, desperate to recruit on the basis of ‘standout award winner’ (and ‘available’) may indeed be thinking. But whoah, 9:36 yesterday, you’re very fired up! And why not? But all that swearing and lowbrow stuff as your temperature rose doesn’t conceal your identity. Your opening few paragraphs of classic joined-up writing style betray you, sir as the eminent industry giant you are, or sadly, to be more accurate, were.Hey, Agencyland always was a twisted, stupid, wasteful place, run by fools to make profits for phillistines. Perhaps we were too young, dedicated or out of it to see that.It’s a bit silly to be venting all that anger now.Perhaps it’s time to do what some others like myself have done and turn your back on the whole shitty mess. Sail your boat, do anything (or nothing) rather than advertising your freelance services in the back of B&T to scratch a couple of bucks together, but let go. Advertising is pathetic now. Have some dignity man!Haven’t you read “Who moved my cheese?”
rofls. might try out that pasta shiz.
I’m going to lunch now and when i get back tomorrow i want to see some real news lynchie.Fuck you all. Keep working.Come on Dave let’s go.
Change HappensThey Keep Moving The CheeseAnticipate ChangeGet Ready For The Cheese To MoveMonitor ChangeSmell The Cheese Often So You Know When It Is Getting OldAdapt To Change QuicklyThe Quicker You Let Go Of Old Cheese, The Sooner You Can Enjoy New CheeseChangeMove With The CheeseEnjoy Change!Savor The Adventure And Enjoy The Taste Of New Cheese!Be Ready To Change Quickly And Enjoy It Again & AgainThey Keep Moving The Cheese.
11.08 – how is life on a yacht, Jay? Lucky bugger..
Dear 7.58. If you feel the need to say something about me, use your real name. Better yet, come and join me at the Cricketers Arms in Surry Hills and we can discuss what a talentless cunt I am face to face. I’m usually there between about 5 and 7.Cheerio.
11.08, you sound like a complete dickhead.Are you?
Nice idea Steve, though it’s been done on the blog before.The anonymous coward never showed that time, either.
I’d laugh it was Spiller.Now THAT’s a fight I’d like to see.
Yeah he’s got muscles on his muscles. No brain, but plenty muscles.
Oh come on! Spiller did an ad once. Oh no sorry. That was Dave Alberts. Sorry. I got confused.
Type ‘Matt McGrath” (with inverted commas) into Google and take a look at the ad on the far right hand side of the results page.Hmmmmm.
Christ, talk about killing the golden egg that laid the goose!
Christ, talk about goosing the killer that laid the golden egg!
Didn’t Matt do that big beer ad with all the guys running across The Lord of the Rings set?
Yes folks, you can have all the Matt McGrath you can handle, simply by clicking here.
Doddsy fucked my mum in her arse and left his KFC on her head. But like many before you, been there done that!
Last I heard Taylor was in LA.
Do any of you juniors actually know what a CD does? James McGrath, Matt Eastwood, Darren Spiller et al have never done a great ad…yeah right!!! James led Patts to number one, when was Matt last in Australia M&C Melbourne won more awards than any other agency and Darren Spiller CDed years of great work on Nike, Tourism Victoria and many, many more. It just makes you sound niave when you bitch about the people that helped make those successes possible.
This was the funniest posting as it is just so true:”$100 bucks says the PattsY&R mess is 10 times easier to fix than the bloody disaster O”Sullivan left Clemengers in – they’re still trying to fix that 2+ years later [and as we all know, there’re still a few more bodies to be dragged out of that train wreck]”I am sure once Emma has shown James all the great ‘Clemenger’ work she has done over the last few years he will realisewhat needs to be done.Mike O’Sullivan must of cost Clemenger millions…It has been one disaster after another at Clem’s Melbourne for years and yearsFinally that cool NZ dude Peter B is beginning to make it happen…Hopefully this time they get it right buy sacking every single member of the Clemenger Melbourne creative department and studioNice people and personalities aside, to get a great creative department, you need to loose ALL the people with lack of vision andhire ONLY creative visionary’sAll who are there now have had too many chances and have just screwed up again and again…Like a domestic roach problem: you either use the ‘O’Sullivan’ or ‘Hill’ brands supermarket aerosol spray and traps that never work OR you get in the specialists to bomb the whole house, clearing the filthy pests for good.Lets hope old Jimmy Mcgrath prefers to spray the whole damn place (including the studio and account management department), otherwise the change will absolutely never happen
Don’t you worry 11:30 pm. He will do it. He did at Patts too. He will arrive, ease in, pretend everything’s cool for a month or two, thus giving his victims a false sense of security and then the sword will be out. If anyone thinks it will happen otherwise, please don’t be naive. And don’t say you didn’t see it coming.
“All who are there now have had too many chances and have just screwed up again and again…’Other than Hill, who has been in the clemenger creative department longer than 5 mins? Seriously…Name some people….Cameron H has been there only 2 or so years i’d reckon, but who else?
Enough about McGrath, Eastwood, Hill and O’Sullivan. It’s taken all the attention off that non-event Nobby?
While we’re at it, I’d like someone to fill out the list of award-winning ads that James McGrath has written himself:James McGrath’s Great Award winning Ads:1…………………..2…………………..3…………………..4…………………..5…………………..6…………………..7…………………..8…………………..9…………………..10…………………Then perhaps we could look at Craig Davis:Craig Davis’ Great Award winning Ads:1…………………..2…………………..3…………………..4…………………..5…………………..6…………………..7…………………..8…………………..9…………………..10…………………
Has James McGrath ever even written an actual ad? Just wondering?
Any word on a replacement for James?
James did the much awarded Bolle ad about fucking on a beach and needing protection, which turns out to be sunnies rather than a dinger.
James McGrath. Coat tails. There, I’ve said it.
How come this post hit the hundred mark then suddenly shot down to eighty seven?A wee bit of censorship going on?I think we should be told.
Fucking typical. Lynchy removes every reference to Matt, yet leaves up a post accusing Doddsy of butt-fucking someones mother then leaving his KFC on her head.That’s libellous. Everyone knows you finish off the KFC first. The grease leaks out of your dick so you don’t need any lube.
heard josh resigned
Mather’s gone.
Forget those guys. We wanna talk about Eastwood again! Has the embargo been lifted?
Clememger have had three or four years of non-stop mega blunders, turning a once great agency into a laughing stock. But this takes the cake. They’re stuffed now. Dead as a doornail. Staff with shares – sell ’em now.
Actually, 9.47, James McGrath may have been the art director on the Bolle ad, but whose idea was it? Here’s a clue. It was the writer.