Richard Murray Archives - Williams Murray Hamm

Remembering Richard Murray (1965 – 2010)

Ten years after Richard’s untimely death at 44 years old, very few people currently at WMH worked alongside him. Yet, remarkably, his influence on the business remains very strong. WMH’s positioning, attitude and behaviour all derived from him and continue to course through the veins of the company today.

I have never encountered anyone so confident in their own views and as keen to dominate proceedings as Richard Murray. It was his clarity of thought that gave WMH its provocative stance – a simple extension of his personal beliefs that marketing and design had become moribund and unoriginal and needed goading.

To him, we were shooting at an open goal and it should have been easy to make a success of things. It was not, for the simple reason that most people in marketing are surprisingly risk averse. Richard railed loudly at the failure of other firms to create ground breaking work and readily walked away from clients who didn’t share our views. For a start-up business, this was wonderful stuff, because it gave us a common enemy – lazy thinking. Some thought we were arrogant, some cultish, but we didn’t care we, and particularly Richard, knew we were right.

In the ever more complex world of branding, it was good old packaging design that Richard held closest to his heart. Whilst other agencies, once established, moved swiftly into the more lucrative corporate identity world or focused on ‘digital’, Richard believed you could still command most fame through packaging design and it was fame that Richard sought for us. Packaging also connected him to the audience that he was most comfortable with everyday people, going about their everyday lives. ‘Big Brother’ and tabloid newspapers were what fascinated him, not the ‘C-Suite’.

Whilst kind and, on occasions, immensely caring, Richard would be the first to declare himself ‘difficult’ to work with, indeed he would be proud of the moniker. In his world, there was little worse in life than being beige. Chipped cups were publicly dropped onto the concrete floor, accountants and architects roasted for sloppy thinking or missing the brief. It did not stop people admiring him – you were never in doubt where you stood with Richard Murray.

He could be immensely funny. He had the wit and delivery to make a good stand-up comedian and, at one time, nurtured thoughts of a one-man show. Company drinks and Christmas parties always saw him centre stage, as did awards ceremonies, as long as we had won. If we hadn’t, he cleared off quickly, trailing a stream of invective behind him.

I always thought Richard was a designer manqué. He loved design and peoples’ reactions to it and, of course, he was obsessed with big ideas. He held designers in awe. Everyone else, including him, was there to serve them and, in turn, he commanded huge respect from them.

Like so many brilliant people (and Richard was brilliant) he was loved and feared equally. Clients didn’t get special treatment. He’d still show up an hour late for their most important meetings, tell them they were being lazy or he’d stop the meeting until they put their phones away. It just reinforced the message that this larger than life character was different to all the rest and he was.

Richard was a complex and endearingly funny man who had the remarkable power to make complicated things frighteningly simple. I am indebted to him for a helter skelter ride that I’d never have wanted to miss.

Author: Richard Williams

WMH foresaw the “Trump Factor” in 2002, but we didn’t recognise it for what it was.

Our radical, baked bean smothered, Hovis rebrand, failed dismally in research. No consumers polled would admit to feeding their family baked beans, in spite of it being one of the country’s favourite grocery products.

The research firm suggested that the design be dropped for something with more wheat on it, or perhaps a picture of a loaf. Brave management ignored this wisdom and ‘Big Food Hovis’ went on to become the fastest growing grocery brand in the country. Saving the brand and saving scores of jobs.

Unwittingly we had encountered an early case of ‘Shy respondents’.

When the Conservatives won the last election, against all odds, pollsters put it down to ‘Shy Tories’, people who wouldn’t admit to voting for Mr Cameron. The Donald’s extraordinary win is put down to the same phenomenon – a fear of admitting who you’re voting for because you’re rather, or very, ashamed.

We are in the ‘post truth’ era, where nobody trusts experts and everyone follows their emotions – think Brexit.

So what’s new? Advertising and branding has always done this. When two products are similar, we in marketing use emotion to carve out our space. Facts, in the world of pasta sauce, luxury perfumes, tinned custard and frozen ready meals don’t count for much, but the emotional pull of a great brand can be irresistible.

The conundrum lies in that no manufacturer worth their salt would ever go to market without asking consumers what they think.

‘Consumers lie’ the late Richard Murray used to cry ‘If research is infallible, why do so many products fail?”

Of the experts we no longer trust, pollsters have tumbled to the same depth as politicians, financial forecasters, priests and latterly, football coaches. For years, research has kicked the hell out of great ideas in advertising and design. We all know it, as do our clients.

Dan Izbicki, Unilever’s creative excellence director recently said that the company’s products are not high interest categories for consumers.

“We need great creativity and great work to cut through that. Far too often we get scared and go back to the easier thing to do because it’s not going to be terribly damaging – but we can do something bigger and better and braver.”

He is absolutely right. The problem is that research will most likely kill the brave ideas that he wants. ‘Shy’ consumers and conservative marketers looking for the next career move, will conspire to normalise everything.

It’s time for those who seek the public’s opinion to get better at what they do. They need to create measures that really work, that allow us a true picture of what’s going on. Hopefully, it’ll also allow companies the ability to break through into better, braver, more effective marketing too. It’s long overdue.

Author: Richard Williams

Williams Murray Hamm

Richard Murray

“I’m glad I was along for the ride”

Remembering Richard Murray (1965 – 2010)

Baked Beans = Trump

WMH foresaw the “Trump Factor” in 2002, but we didn’t recognise it for what it was.

We are in the ‘post truth’ era, where nobody trusts experts and everyone follows their emotions – think Brexit.

“We need great creativity and great work to cut through that. Far too often we get scared and go back to the easier thing to do because it’s not going to be terribly damaging – but we can do something bigger and better and braver.”