Cannes 2015: Tor Myhren

A natural-born ad man, Tor Myhren is all about gentle persuasion. Grey’s wunderkind worldwide CCO and president of its NY shop sees his role as Film jury president as a chance to enjoy and moderate smart people with strong views, ‘kill with kindness’ any bulky egos and remind his team that the jurors will be judged too. He tells Carol Cooper his thoughts on the pros of Cannes and cons of other awards shows, the value of having fun and the industry’s worrying brain-drain

Nobody’s calling Tor Myhren immature, but he does share traits with possibly his most famous creation, the stockbroking infant star of his long-running E*Trade Baby campaign – namely he’s ridiculously cool, witty and kind of winsome, plus he’s rather a high achiever for his age. In 2010, aged 38, he was promoted to worldwide CCO of Grey and president of its flagship New York office; he was picked as one of Fortune magazine’s 40 under 40; he’s a two-time TED speaker and has garnered a slew of awards for work such as the hilarious DirecTV Cable Effects series, the Oprah car giveaway and powerful spots for States United to Prevent Gun Violence.

A graduate in English literature, he got into advertising purely on the strength of a collection of writings, including poems and short stories, and his early work as a newspaper sports reporter. Kicking off copywriting at a small agency in his hometown of Denver, he hurtled up the career ladder, working at Wongdoody and TBWAChiatDay in LA, Leo Burnett in Detroit and then joining Grey New York as CCO in 2007. He’s largely credited with turning the agency’s fortunes around – in five years its revenue grew by 60 per cent and its headcount doubled. Last year the shop was named Agency of the Year by Ad Age and it formed a considerable part of Grey North America’s haul of $370 million in new business.

Despite his abundance of wins, Myhren believes creatives should have the freedom to fail. In fact, one of the many innovations that’s helped to revolutionise his agency’s workplace culture – and thus massively boost its creativity – is his Heroic Failure Awards, which credit staff who take creative risks. He’s sat on three Cannes juries before: Film in 2010 and 2013 and Titanium last year. This is his first time as president.

What was your first reaction to being offered the post of Film jury president?

Well first off, it’s a huge honour to be chosen as the president of the Film jury so I was super-excited. I love judging at Cannes; I’ve done it three times before, but I’ve never been president. I think Cannes sets the bar for creativity in our industry, so I’m psyched to be heading up what I consider to be one of the most interesting juries.

What guidance will you be giving the jury?

The most important thing to remember when you’re judging is that your name goes on every single piece of work that wins, just as your name is on your own work. Your reputation is on the line, so you better pick the best stuff. I think we’ve all seen juries in the past that have made really questionable selections and you look at the jury and you kind of end up judging the jurors, in a way.

Do you think Cannes falls prey to hidden agendas?

I think it’s impossible for any juror to be 100 per cent pure. Almost everyone in that room has a horse in the race and many might also have an axe to grind. So as regards individuals being biased, yes – you’re going to have some of that. It’s human nature. But that’s why you have 22 jurors on the Film jury and you have to have three quarters of the vote to win. 

What strategies will you employ to marshal any conflicting or supersized egos?

Best thing for supersized egos… kill them with kindness! There are so many big egos in that room anyway – and mine isn’t small – I think you’ve just got to hear people out and let them talk. I think what’s really cool about judging at Cannes is that there are so many smart people in the room with very strong opinions. So you’ll hear one person give an argument and you’ll be, “Wow, you’ve just changed my mind! I think you’re right,” and another person will give a different argument and you’ll say, “Wait a minute – maybe you’re right.” It’s not like it’s a bunch of morons talking. However, if you do have one or two gigantic egos you can’t let them dominate. The only time I’ve been on juries where the outcome was disappointing was when one or two outspoken people repeatedly swayed the jury. You can’t let that happen. But I don’t think the president should be making the decisions either. You can’t get heavy-handed as a president. 

Will you have any time to relax and socialise?

I have some evening plans, but I’ll be judging every day. The Film jury is the longest – from Saturday to Saturday. I was on Hegarty’s Film jury in 2013 and he said, “We’re getting this done on time. We’re not going to stay till 8 or 9pm.” I’ll do the same. I think you can get caught up in long, meaningless conversations if you’re not careful.

What type of work or new trends are you hoping to see from the last year?

Where we, as an industry, are taking storytelling in film is to me the most interesting thing. In many respects, more interesting than where we’re taking the technology. I know those two things can go hand in hand, and when they do – that’s a beautiful thing. I’m looking forward to seeing – particularly in the online video space – if we are taking engagement and interaction to the next level.

I think some of the best work I’ve seen recently follows a trend away from ‘big’ stories to more intimate storytelling. For example, last year’s #LikeAGirl campaign for Always [from Leo Burnett Chicago] was a really nice piece; moving and intimate and it went phenomenally viral. It was all about the humanity. There was a similar intimacy to our campaign for States United to Prevent Gun Violence, where we opened a gun store in New York. It used a hidden camera to record real emotions. It wasn’t a big production deal. We did it for very little money, but it was just real. I knew we had something, but I couldn’t believe the viral nature of it and how much the media picked up on it.

I’ll tell you one trend I don’t like in our industry, I feel it’s very hard now to find truly funny ads anymore. There are few that really make me laugh and that bums me out. It’s really getting watered down, it’s way too mass, all the edges are being worn off. I have a theory this could be that we have less fun than we used to in this industry, partially because of the speed at which we work now, partially because of a fundamental change in the economy since 2007. Now every business is doing more with less people. So it makes it really important that all of us that are running agencies focus more on culture – if you have a really strong, fun, optimistic culture you not only attract more young talent but people tend to not worry as much about the fact that they’re working harder, for longer hours. 

Is advertising still global?

There are still interesting regional differences, but one of the biggest trends in our industry is the movement towards more global ideas. It’s a much smaller world now because of the connectivity. I think it’s the ultimate test of an idea – if it can truly cut through to the majority of markets in the world, you have a pretty damn good idea. And that means that it has to be simple, clear, and oftentimes it has to be visual. I always say it’s an art director’s world, I just live in it. It’s a bit annoying for writers I think, but it’s a fact. 

Do you think there’s a pressure to exploit new technologies for the sake of it, when what’s vital is the core idea?

The fundamentals haven’t changed, it goes back to what we always talk about – a strong idea. But the technology and different platforms give you a much bigger canvas to work on, and it’s why I think we’re in the most interesting time in the history of advertising right now. We can now tell stories in so many different ways. Frankly I don’t think it’s made the work any better or worse – but I do think that it should be better than it is, and I don’t think it’s technology or clients that are dragging it down. The biggest problem we have right now is that we’re losing some of the best creative minds to other creative industries. Now that creative industries are, in one way or another, merging – the talent is going into gaming, or designing for Apple or working on Facebook or the million opportunities that Google are offering – and those are just the obvious companies. There are loads more small, interesting tech companies popping up left and right. I think the younger generation is more entrepreneurial than ever so I think we need to do more to attract creative minds. The best – and hardest – way to do that is just to do better work. Also, I think there are some workplace culture issues we as an industry need to tackle; we’re a little bit behind on the more progressive things the tech companies are offering, whether it’s for pregnant women, new dads, healthcare, or a more open management style.

You made a number of workplace improvements at Grey, do you think that’s how you turned the agency’s fortunes around?

Grey was a very account-driven agency for decades, so I think putting a really sharp focus on the creative product was the most important thing we achieved. We had to convince every single person working at Grey that the creative product is what our value is, and that it can come from anybody, it’s a task for the entire agency. Once everybody saw that great creative product led to more and better business, everybody got on board. That simplifies more than seven years of trying to change an agency! Having a partner like Jim Heekin [Grey’s global CEO], who totally understands the importance of a creative culture, has been fantastic.

In your 2011 TED Talk on creativity, you advocate promoting the freedom to fail and list competition as a ‘creativity killer’, but surely the competitiveness in the ad industry comes to the fore at Cannes? So how would you advise creatives/agencies to approach the desire to bag as many Lions as possible?

First off, awards should never be the goal, never. The goal should be to do work that becomes famous, that finds its way into the cultural conversation – and by the way, if you do that you’ll probably win awards anyway. When you are looking for inspiration, the last place to look is in last year’s award show book. It was great when it was done, but it’s done; you won’t find inspiration there. Find your inspiration in life, in travel and art and music. There are million things you can do to nurture your brain creatively.

The great thing about awards shows is that, in some ways, they keep our industry honest about what good creative is. Sometimes as an industry we tend to rationalise – so because an ad sold more than the next ad, or because a client was happy in a meeting, it was great creative. But I think what is great creative is something that’s new and unique; that takes the industry to the next level and I think that is something awards shows can decipher. On the bad side, I think there’s way too many awards shows and most of them don’t matter. At Grey New York we only enter two awards shows – Cannes and the Effies. Many agencies spend an inordinate amount of money entering every single, local awards show to try to score in The Gunn Report. And ultimately I don’t think that it’s important. I would much rather take the money that would be spent on awards entries and spend it on the staff, on somebody’s raise or bonus, or trying to get some awesome graduate to come to Grey. By the way, I am in the minority in this argument!

That said, we do enter Cannes and we strive to do well there – because it is the benchmark for creativity in our industry, and it’s global. That’s the other vital thing – if you are going to measure yourself, you’ve got to measure yourself against the world.