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Grey’s prince of pop culture

PROFILE Tor Myhren made those talking babies famous – and now he’s intent on putting advertising at the heart of the cultural conversation. By Alexander Garrett

2015 WAS truly a spectacular year at Cannes for Grey, with 113 Lions, including 21 Golds and no fewer than four Grand Prix, a haul beyond anybody’s expectations of an agency network once regarded as unexciting. The spoils spanned 18 countries and 20 categories, with New York, London and Berlin taking the top honours. But for Tor Myhren, Grey’s chief creative officer, the icing on the cake was that “every time one of our agencies won, all the others were on their feet with a standing ovation.”

That mutual support is emblematic of the team spirit that pervades Grey’s agencies, says Myhren. “I think we have a very special thing going right now. I really believe we are the best agency in the world, by almost any criterion. A couple of agencies at Cannes won more awards than us, but none won better Lions than us.”

Success in the south of France provided further endorsement of the remarkable

transformation in Grey’s reputation that has occurred over the last seven or eight years, masterminded by Myhren in a close partnership with Grey’s veteran CEO Jim Heekin. Recognition started in 2010 with Grey New York being selected by Fast Company as one of the 50 most innovative companies in the world, and has culminated in a string of Agency of the Year awards.

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Grey’s chief creative officer, Tor Myhren: “The premium on a great creative product is at the highest point it’s ever been in our industry”

I really believe we are the best agency in the world, by almost any criterion

Myhren arrived as CCO at Grey New York in 2007 and became president three years later, then worldwide CCO in 2013. From the outset, no campaign did more to put the agency on the map than the E*Trade ‘Baby’ campaign which for five years was probably the most talked-about campaign in North America. “I had no idea it was going to be as big as it was,” says Myhren. “In fact I was terrified as it was my first campaign

at Grey. I started in October and it ran in the Super Bowl in January.” The first ad featured poorly-produced webcam footage of a baby talking about buying shares, a deliberate stand-out from the customary Super Bowl extravaganza. “A talking baby’s been done a hundred times, but we did it a little differently, certainly gave it a less expected voice, and for whatever reason it just hit like a bomb in pop culture,” reflects Myhren. He credits client Nick Utton for sticking with the campaign after the first two ads.

Further waves were made with work for NFL and DirecTV – remember the oligarch with the miniature giraffe? But Myhren

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WHO’S influenced you most in your career? My parents were by far the most influential people in my life and in my creativity. My Dad’s a businessman, my Mom’s a social worker and a writer, so they’re about as different as two people can be. I learned a lot on the business side from my Dad, and I learned a lot from my Mom about free creative expression. I was always into expressing myself and what they both did was to be incredibly supportive of whatever creative endeavor I was getting into.

WHAT advice would you like to have given your younger self?The same advice my father gave me. He said: if you do what you love the money will come, if you do it for money you will never love it. I’ve always followed that.

Five minutes with Tor MyhrenWHEN you’re in search of ideas, where do you find them?I get inspired by walking around the streets of New York, seeing what’s going on, seeing the fashion, going to art shows, movies, plays.

HOW do you spend your downtime? I spend a lot of time with my wife and my daughter, she’s four years old. I am a very avid skier – I recently went helicopter skiing in the Canadian Rockies. But I grew up in Colorado, so I’ve been skiing since I was three years old. Oh, and I’m a movie junkie.

WHERE does your name come from? It comes from Norway. My Dad’s family is Norwegian – his name is Trygve, and I guess he got to name me.

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Grey’s prince of pop culture

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picks out another award-winning campaign – ‘Breathe Happy’ for Febreze, in which blindfolded members of the public were taken to squalid locations that have been sprayed with the freshener – as a second turning point. “That was a huge moment because it proved to our agencies that we can do world-class work on Procter & Gamble. We’ve done a ton of great work for P&G brands since.”

The measure of success is not just in awards, though, or a stellar record on new business. Since he pitched up on its door step, Grey New York’s headcount has risen from 350 to 1,100; even more remarkable, where there were three account people for every creative, now there is parity. “The biggest thing we have achieved is convincing everybody in the agency that what we sell is

a creative product, and that’s what people are buying from us,” says Myhren. “That sounds super-obvious but when everybody knows that the creative is the thing that has to be great, it really changes the way people go about their job.”

He created the Heroic Failure Award, to ensure that great ideas are supported whatever the results. He explains: “The only way we’re going to stay ahead of the industry and of the other industries encroaching on our livelihood is to come up with really brave ideas that are provocative and break through in the cultural conversation. And to do that, it has to be something we’ve never seen before.”

And taking on the role of agency president was hugely significant in the process of building a creative culture, he believes, by making the creative department accountable and at the same time giving creativity representation in the meetings where key decisions were made. It’s a modus Grey has since adopted as far afield as Ecuador, one of the network’s top Latin American offices, and London, where CCO Nils Leonard recently became chairman. And while the creative revolution started in New York, the bigger challenge – and achievement – has been to roll it out globally. Like other major networks, Grey has a 20-strong global creative council that meets bi-annually to drive up the standard of work around the world. “Ours is unique in a few ways; we’ll talk about our biggest new business win of the last six months, get the team up and ask them how they did it; or if there’s an amazing piece of work everyone’s talking about, we want to share the insights.” Every agency in the world is ranked and when Heekin visits, “he only has two pieces of paper in his hand when he sits down with the CEO,” says Myhren, “the P&L and the creative ranking.”

The only way we’re going to stay ahead of the industry and of the other industries encroaching on our livelihood is to come up with really brave ideas that are provocative and break through in the cultural conversation

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It might seem a given that a creative leader would champion the power of ideas, but it is a theme that Myhren has addressed with unusual clarity and articulacy, not least in one of his two TEDx talks. “The premium on a great creative product is at the highest point it’s ever been in our industry,” he argues. “If you look at the brands that are most successful in the world, in terms of effectively selling, those brands are often attached to a really buzzed-about famous campaign.” Brand owners and CMOs cannot ignore ideas that resonate with the public at large, regardless of personal preferences. “I talk to clients about the importance of both of us really truly understanding pop culture, what’s hot and why. It doesn’t mean you have to agree with it, or like it, but understanding why things are happening, why things go viral, is super important to our business now,” says Myhren.

Grey’s credo of ‘Famously Effective’ is more relevant than ever says Myhren; it’s just that the nature of fame has evolved from being talked about in newspapers and late-night talk shows to blogs, social media and going viral.

In the meantime, advertising has become a mainstream pillar of pop culture, he believes. “We’ve tended to look at ourselves as being on the outside looking in, but right now the advertising industry is smack dab in the middle of it, working hand in hand with music, Hollywood, Bollywood, Silicon Valley, the gaming industry. We are sitting on boards with those people, collaborating with them everyday. We’re incredibly influential now. Songs you couldn’t buy for 10 million bucks, now they’re calling us, saying we have

a new single, we’d love it if there’s a brand we can attach it to, because advertising is one of the best distribution models for music. Now we are sitting at the nexus of all those creative industries so it is a great time to be in advertising.”

Myhren’s own journey to contemporary Mad Man began as a sports reporter on the Providence Journal in Providence, Rhode Island. He became a copywriter in his home town of Denver, Colorado, then worked at a couple of Los Angeles agencies, Wongdoody and TBWA Chiat Day, before joining Leo Burnett in Detroit, and moving on to Grey New York.

He was drawn into advertising, he says, by the desire to tell stories. He’s never been shy of putting himself out there, whether that be mimicking Sinead O’Connor, recounting how he lost his virginity for a talk on social media, paying a cringe-making musical video tribute to Jim Heekin in the style of Abba’s Fernando or recording the baby’s voice in some of those E*trade commercials.

“I think that all comes from the fact that really, really I have always wished I could be a rock star,” says Myhren. “I am a terrible singer, I have no musical skills. But to this day I go to shows, watch and I think I would do what that person is doing even if there

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Grey’s prince of pop culture

Songs you couldn’t buy for 10 million bucks, now they’re calling us, saying we have a new single, we’d love it if there’s a brand we can attach it to

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were only five people watching. I do love to present, get up in front of people.”

He readily admits to harbouring artistic aspirations outside advertising and has already made a documentary for ESPN – City Lax: an Urban Lacrosse Story. Film-making and writing fiction are in his sights, but for now, advertising is where he’s happy to be. “Many have predicted the

death of advertising, but it’s been incredibly resilient, and I think that’s because of the people and the unique talent we have to tell compelling stories in a concise and digestible way. When you step outside our industry and you see other people trying to do that it’s tough. It is the people that make this industry so great and that’s what keeps me interested.”