​Ogilvy is already UK & Ireland’s most awarded agency. James Murphy hungers for more

So a challenge, albeit a welcome one for Murphy, is to scale up an agency that is already topping tables. Murphy’s reputation as a creative leader was built through his tenure at Adam&EveDDB, where it secured numerous Cannes Lions Agency of the Year titles and somehow turned a Christmas campaign launch into a cultural moment (John Lewis). His knack for merging commercial effectiveness with high-impact creative work is now at play at Ogilvy. When asked the mandatory question of what the culture would look like if it were bottled, Murphy replies that success in advertising is inherently a team sport.

“I don’t think you could do anything on your own in this industry. You need people who are great, insightful, strategic and logical thinkers. You need people who are natural and random in the way they think. You also need people who are great at words and pictures, great with the ideas and energy on social media.

“It’s almost like a gang culture. There’s a gang on brand X and a different gang on brand Y and they’re very proud of what they do. And that’s what I really like about it.”

Murphy is also a strong advocate for in-person collaboration, believing that physical presence fuels creative breakthroughs – which is the perfect moment to bring up WPP’s four-day office mandate (January 2025) and how it could affect the culture going forward.

It wouldn’t, really. For many at Ogilvy UK, four days would be a reduction in office time, not an increase. “We do our best work together. I cannot number the times when a piece of work was good and logical and intelligent but we suddenly made a leap because of the serendipity of people colliding, coming together randomly.

“I bet if you looked at the history of iconic work in our industry, the number of times there would have been random coming together of thinking or minds – that happens when we’re physically in the same space. That is much less likely to happen on a Teams call.”

Murphy does acknowledge that remote work has provided significant benefits for employees, particularly parents and carers. “A lot of people come into their absolute prime in the industry at a point where they’re trying to juggle familial responsibility. The flexibility to work out of the office has actually helped most people to continue thriving careers while balancing those responsibilities.”

The human ability to think naturally

WPP’s creative agencies struggled in 2024, with the Global Integrated Agencies (GIA) segment reporting a 0.8% decline in revenue less pass-through costs. The Other Integrated Creative Agencies category, which includes several WPP creative shops, saw an even steeper drop of 3.9%. A combination of discretionary client budget cuts, healthcare account losses and tough year-over-year comparisons on incentives dragged down performance across the board.

Yet amid these headwinds, the broader Ogilvy group grew. While WPP CEO Mark Read acknowledged the need for structural simplification and increased investment in AI and data, Murphy sticks to the fundamentals. For example, he is pragmatic about technological advancements in advertising: “Most technology-led advantages are flattened within two or three years and you have to, I’m afraid, revert to the enduring competitive advantage, which is the human ability to think naturally.”

He also explains that, while we came together to discuss Ogilvy’s stellar performance on the awards front, it’s not his main focus. “We are at our happiest when we’re doing really populist work that consumers love. Work that they either find funny or feel warm about. We’re not kind of industry-obsessed ad people. We’re in the game of connecting with the British public, not with ad jury members.”

So, what does success look like for Murphy? A simple test he uses (and yes, he admitted it is a cliché) is: “Your aunt at the Christmas lunch table. If she says, ‘I saw that and I really liked it,’ then you know you’ve done something right.”

Looking ahead, Murphy wants to build a stronger Ogilvy UK. That means not just winning the UK awards table but winning the biggest clients. “I think there’s a really, really strong growth creative culture where we probably need to build a bit more in the UK because, actually, quite a lot of work is done for multi-market, international clients. We want more local work.”

When asked what work will reflect what’s to come from an even more UK-ish Ogilvy, he beams with pride when discussing Sainsbury’s 2024 Christmas campaign with the BFG. Also, expect some strong work from the newly won PG Tips account.

And if there is any guiding light on the work to come, it’s this: “We’re operating in a pretty turbulent, sometimes quite bleak and worrying, definitely post-truth world. But that’s an opportunity for brands, because we can represent the best of media, the best of communication. That idea of truth well told. People can be forgiven for being disoriented, worried, even traumatized by what they see in the world.”

Will Ogilvy’s output for beloved brands at least provide a welcome escape? Next year’s World Creative Rankings will likely put that to the test.