Pat Murphy:

Hi, and welcome to the MCA Prodcast. Your  fix for everything Innovative in advertising production. I’m Pat Murphy, and I’ve been working in this industry for more than 35 years now. I’ve seen a lot of changes, but know there’s plenty more around the corner.

Each week on the podcast, you’ll get to hear from one of the movers and shakers who are shaping the world of advertising production for the future. And we’ll dive into some of the key challenges facing our sector today and how we’re best placed to overcome them.

Today we are talking to Matt Cooper, the founder, and CEO of Little Black book, the platform for the global creative community. It has a member list made up of most of the world’s most creative companies, from the biggest ad agencies and networks, as well as the world’s top production and post-production companies.

Matt, welcome to our podcast. It’s a great pleasure to have you here today.

Matt Cooper:

Thanks, Pat. Great to be here.

Pat Murphy:

Now, I’ve known you for a very, very long time. <Laugh>, we’re not gonna say how far back! But let’s start from the beginning. Matt, you’ve been working in this business, in advertising and post-production asset management for approximately 30 years now, and have been lucky enough to travel to many countries and meet and befriend many leaders in Adland! But what was before that for you?

Matt Cooper:

Before that? Well, that’s interesting. So I started Saatchi’s in 1988, I think 87, 88. Before that I had a clothing business, funnily enough before I got into this world of advertising, I guess actually I was in advertising just just before that. I worked for a small company called Conway who created Type-A type stuff. But before that, yeah, I had a clothing pisses. I was in the rag trade.

Pat Murphy:

Wow. And then how did you get into Saatchi? I was probably there at the same time as you were?

Matt Cooper:

I think you were. I, I had this clothes shop at a very young age. Kind of a bit of a, a strange dream. Our road got closed in the town we had to shop in and I had to close the shop. So I looked for a job. I found an advert in the standard for this job in a company called Saatchi & Saatchi, which I knew nothing about. I think I was the 18th interview, which is a, which is another quite funny story. Somehow, man to land the job. And I, I’ve kind of never looked back!

Pat Murphy:

Fantastic. So you did a bit of time as… you were in the post from at Saatchi weren’t you?

Matt Cooper:

In the post room, dispatch department. Absolutely.

Pat Murphy:

And then what happened after that?

Matt Cooper:

What happened after that, I guess – a few different things there. Some quite comical things at Saatchi & Saatchi – as you can imagine in the eighties!

Pat Murphy:

Oh, I remember very well. <laugh> None of which we can mention, of course.

Matt Cooper:

Exactly. Can’t talk about too much of that stuff. I then moved across to The Mill where I, similar sort of role that moved slightly into library and production environment and things changed rapidly there because I saw ways to move video, really that, that kind of changed my whole life!

Pat Murphy:

And you were the original founder, I suppose, of, BEAM TV. Which I’m sure a lot of people will remember. Is BEAM TV still going?

Matt Cooper:

Is in some way, shape or form I think its a very different BEAM TV now, I mean, BEAM was a fantastic time, you know, it came out of really us, us doing at The Mill. Gladiator with Ridley Scott, and, and delivering the cuts in an incredibly slow way. We told him we could do the special effects. Obviously we were in London, he was in LA and we were delivering, delivering poorly. So, you know, someone, a good friend of both of ours yelled, ‘send him an mpeg’. This was the early days of the internet, the internet wasn’t really a thing then for moving film at least. And, you know, we worked out to do that. And that was just an incredible time for me personally.

Pat Murphy:

And you and I worked very closely together when I was at Leo Burnett at that time collaborating on helping you to, to put the functionality in place. I remember it very well.

Then of course I became slightly a competitor when I went over to Adstream. Yeah, <laugh> interesting days.

Matt Cooper:

You were one of the first! There was, there was yourself, there was Bobby Short at Saatchi’s. And a couple of others like John Haggerty, I think saw the early usage of, of what it could do. And it feels like, you know, a long time ago now, but, you know, it did it change the way we all worked BEAM TV. It really did.

Pat Murphy:

So tell me, what was the inspiration then for LBB?

Matt Cooper:

Well, a lot of it was inspired by BEAM TV. I was travelling an awful lot, as you said, I was lucky enough really to be going from New York to LA to London, to Paris, to, to wherever and working with and see some of the best production companies, agencies, post-houses in the world. And whenever I’d come back, people would say to me, you know, who’s good in New York, who’s good in LA or who’s good in Paris. And you know, we, we started to put this information together and created what was originally a small little black book. One for London, one for Paris, one for New York, one for Cannes, one for LA. And I think it was John Heggarty who said to me, you know, ‘you could do a lot more than what this book is currently’. And that pushed it further. Really.

Pat Murphy:

Yeah. But what would he know? Right,

Matt Cooper:

Exactly. Yeah, <laugh>,

Pat Murphy:

I remember those little black book, you know, those kind of things that you used to send around. A lot of people only know it now as an online platform, but don’t remember it as it originally started. But I remember it very well.

Matt Cooper:

Yeah, I mean, it was, it was a very basic thing. And I think, you know, when, when we started it, you know, that some of the information that had in it was very useful to people. And you know, what John and others realised, there was an opportunity to do things that weren’t available right there. I mean, you know, I was one of those people probably like yourself – when I was at The Mill we were spending a lot of money advertising things like Beam TV and they were all also local. You know, if you were, if you are a post house or a production company you had a couple of places you could advertise. If you’re an agency, again, couple of places, but they were local. The idea of LBB was really based on, what I created at BEAM TV – a global platform. And a lot of people don’t think of it as a platform, but it is. It’s a platform in its truest sense. It’s not a publication, it’s something very different

Pat Murphy:

Now. It’s been going for quite a while now. How has LBB evolved since its original inception?

Matt Cooper:

Well, actually, I mean, apart from the book, we created the concept to this very early on!   It was day one, really. I mean, we always thought that if we, if we went as we’ve always called it, bottom up. So, you know, I, I came last from the post world and the post world is obviously the end of the process. But we thought if we could go from post to production to agency, we would then get the brand viewing and the brand joining. Because at that point, you know, the world was changing so quickly. You know, when I started this thing, really it was advertising agencies choosing for a commercial, for example – a director who would choose a post house or, you know, from the top client picking, agency agents, picking production company, production company, picking director, out to post house.

What we saw, or we knew as you did at the same time, was there was a massive change coming. And if we could create a platform that could, in, that could inspire the end client on who they’d work with in the new way of working, you know, we, we foresaw big clients having in-house departments. We foresaw that agencies were working different ways with post like Mill. So really, if I’m honest with you, it’s stuck to the exact same plan and we’ve bolted in bits on as we get, you know it’s a news channel with an award channel archive.

Pat Murphy:

So originally – I don’t wanna call them customers, but originally the, the people who engage with LBB, the platform, were creatives, mainly agency people. Has that changed now?

Matt Cooper:

Yeah, massively. I think the, the, the end client or advertiser has now overtaken really the agency. And that’s, that’s not because the agency have stopped using it. The agency use it more and more each day, but, you know, the end client, they wanna know who they can post with, who they can produce with, which agencies to work with. And we call it all in one place. You know, every creative company really of, of size or quality are working with us now. So if you’re a client, you could come review everything free. There’s no customer. So it’s, it’s pretty obvious.

Pat Murphy:

And you have this one global platform or, or do you provide localised versions of the same thing?

Matt Cooper:

You can view it as you want. So you know, if you wanna come and view the French content you can, or the American, Australian, Canadian, whatever – you can. But it’s got a global view with local filters, so you can filter it not just by country, but also by what you are looking for. So if you’re looking for Australian production, you can view by Australian production, so you can see it and you want to see it, Pat. That’s the truth.

Pat Murphy:

Amazing.

Now, LBB is also hosting industry events, conferences, and you have the Immortal Awards. Tell us a little bit about that.

Matt Cooper:   

Yeah, the Immortal Awards is, is something we are immensely proud of. So this started five years ago. Back at the days of BEAM TV, what what I really liked about being was that it created digital entry systems for all the bigger award shows. So Cannes, Cleos, DNAD, the Andes, all of those big shows were entered using BEAM TVs software. So you had a file, put it in the system and BANG! You could push it to all those different award shows. Unfortunately, as Beam grew. And we kind of left, that bit disappeared, but a lot of people said to us as we started up Black book, ‘why didn’t you start an award show’? And my response for six or seven years was, ‘the world doesn’t need another award show. That’s the last bloody thing we need’. So, you know, we sat and thought about this and I always kind of dreamed that, ‘why don’t we open an award show?’

And again, I said to John Heggerty one day, you know, ‘we are thinking about this thing, what do you think?’ And his response was, ‘there is room for another award show but you’ve gotta do it differently’. And I sat and listened to John and listened to various others. And I think what we found out was, was that, you know, the awards show of today perhaps, and I’m never knocking these guys, but are, are perhaps not quite fitting with the business as it is.

So agencies don’t have millions of pounds to spend on entering awards. Perhaps the way things are awarded aren’t quite as they should be. So, you know, the way we created the Immortal Awards was free for of our members to enter. It was another perk of being a member of LBB. But it had to be hard to win.

It had to be category free. And as John said when we started this, you know, agencies are entering lots and lots of stuff. Do they really need to? So we maxed out to five awards per office, and it, it really means that we get the best work and we judge it very differently.

So we judge locally, regionally, and globally. And what that does, Pat, it gives you a, a different view. So, you know, the UK jurors are looking at the best of the UK. That work is then judged alongside Irish, Dutch, German, French work in a regional final, then up to a global final. So all the way through you’re filtering and filtering and filtering. So by the time you give awards out, you really have got the best work in the world.

And to date, in five years, only given out 20 statutes.

Pat Murphy:

Wow. That’s amazing.

So who do you find for the judging or the adjudication of these awards?

Matt Cooper:

Yeah, that’s a good question. From day one we’ve blended it right up. So you know what, what you tend to find with award shows – I’ve sat on so many of those jurys, is groups. So you might find CMOs judging client stuff. You might find directors judging director stuff, you know, whether we best car or whatever it might be.

We, blend it. So the local juror will be a blend of production company owners, directors, producers from agencies, creative from agencies, strategists, and of course end clients. And what the clients really like is they’re judging in a completely different way to the way they normally judge. They’re judging creatively, they’re looking at more than just perhaps the effectiveness, but also how creative something was. So it’s really interesting!

Pat Murphy:

And you do other things as well. You do other kind of conferences. You put me on a conference in New York a few years back, and of course we’ve got the event coming up in Cannes in just a few weeks time from now. Tell us a little bit about how your beach and the events that are happening on your beach has changed from last year. What’s the difference?

Matt Cooper:

Well, its, its evolution again. I mean, you know, we’ve been doing a beach in Canne now for 13 years. When we launch a business, it’s one of the first things we did because we believe there wasn’t a place in Cannes where all the different sort of people would be.

So, you know, that meant post production agency client, that that wasn’t really happening. So we, we created this environment and I guess we’ve learned over the years what people wanna do. They will converse, we’ll talk about. And really, our, our beach is a place where people do business, where they meet to discuss business. And so we sat and thought about what we could do down there. And over the years we’ve created panels and talks that in my opinion – and I’m saying this not to be mean, but I think a lot of these panels end up being presentations! So people, people pitch to be on a, a panel or pitch to, to do a presentation, and they tend to be presentations that are like sales speeches and I’m  not sure people wanna see that stuff.

Pat Murphy:

And, and a lot of other conferences, if I may say, you know not only do delegates have to pay to turn up, but you don’t get to play or be on part of a panel unless you’ve also paid, which means I find that it, you know, you’re not really getting the people who are the change makers.

Matt Cooper:

Yeah. So I don’t see a benefit in that. And I think what we’ve tried to do here is that, you know, I’ve been, began to Cannes now probably like yourself, Pat for about 25 years.

Pat Murphy:

I can’t even remember when the first time was <laugh> Yeah.

Matt Cooper:

Without missing a year. And I think you learn, and I think Cannes for me has always been a place that you respect and admire. It’s a place that has always at a creative edge to it. And we tried to put something together this year that is a nod back to perhaps how I remember Cannes as a, as a deligate. And there’d be very few things on and you’d go and see everything. You’d wanna watch everything, whether it be the car reels or Dave Troger talking about whatever he was talking about. I think, you know, what, what tried to do this year at the beach is something that we’ve really never done before. We’ve had many good people speak, but we’ve put together a whole week of talks and, and the concept is to, to do something that’s called Better Together Advertising 2023.

So we’ve pulled production companies, agencies, post houses and big, big client names together to discuss how we work together. And  that is exciting to me. I mean, really it’s an offline version of the site because, you know, the site is where people come to, to discuss things and, and find things. But this is exciting because I think, you know, it, it starts with clients talking about what they really want and what we’ll do over the week is we’ll break down who does what, discussing things from AI to virtual production, to how do you put a value on creativity and we’ll discuss together how we should work together.

Pat Murphy:

And of course, we talk about change, and you mentioned it earlier, which is one of the reasons you set up LBB in the first place, but change is happening now quicker than ever. So all of these various different things, it’s absolute minefield, isn’t it? So, you know, there’s an opportunity for people to listen to the experts in all these different areas.

Matt Cooper:

That’s what we hope. And you know, I think that, you know, we’ve spoken about this for a long time, and I think that

Pat Murphy:

And I gather when you announced the fact that you were doing this, you had a huge number of people wanting to be on the panels, wanting to come and see the panels and, you know, people are gonna be listening to this podcast. How did people get a chance to come and sit and listen to some of these panel sessions?

Matt Cooper:

Well if they go to LBB – lbbonline.com, they can find the link to where they can apply to come and look. There’s, honestly, there’s hundreds and hundreds of people listening every day. I think we’ve already broke way past where we were last year. And we’ve never been hit so hard. I mean, every year we get hit hard by people who wanna pitch and present stuff. And I think what’s changed this year is that we spent an awful lot of time, as I said earlier, you know, building this business to get to where it is where clients have become their biggest reader.

I think what we’ve really realised now is, is that, you know, what we always hoped was that clients want speak as much as the agency do about creativity and the business and value of creativity and where they fit in it, you know, whether it be an in internal agency in someone like Squarespace or a, a production environment, something like booking.com. They need to talk and they need to, they need to find talent Pat, you know, they need to find partners, they need to discuss the way they work. So we are inundated. I mean, thankfully I should say, I guess, but it’s been fascinating, actually. Fascinating.

Pat Murphy:

Wasn’t that easy though, for you. I remember a few months ago when we were talking about getting this up and running but it’s a bit of a challenge. You know, you still have to have all the logistics in place and there’s always been a buzz around the LBB Beach over the years. Everybody wanted to gravitate around the LBB Beach, but more so this year than ever before. It’s quite incredible what you’ve achieved there.

Matt Cooper:

Well, thanks. I mean, I think all we’ve done is we’ve created an environment where people can discuss and talk about business, right? In a very open way. And I think this thing this year will just add, it will add a whole new level of possibility because, you know, client can be speaking directly to the production company on a panel, which is rare! You, you really get the opportunity.

I think the interesting thing is, is that everyone wants it as much as the other person. And, and my belief is most of these conferences are missing this, you know, they’re either a procurement conference or a an advertiser’s conference or a production conference. And I think we’ve gotta get rid of those kind of silos and just think about how we make this work together.

That’s the key word ‘together’.

Pat Murphy:

Yeah, I mean, I think what you’ve managed to do is you’ve mixed up the panel guests really nicely. So you’ve got a good mix of marketers, you’ve got production people, you’ve got creatives, I mean people at the top of their field. And that’s not the sort of thing that you get at some of these other conferences. And they are people who know what they’re talking about. So it’s actually not just a presentation, as you said, it’s a panel where people can have a proper discussion and answer some of the questions from the audience as well.

Matt Cooper:

Yeah and it is tough. I think I’d give credit to our editors for that. Some of the content our guys are writing, and this is, this is where LBB’s different to most, is that our writers understand post-production agency and client fluently. There’s no difference in language. They understand those things. But putting the panels together is a challenge because you don’t have to think about different job types. You have to, you have to balance these things, which is, which is a challenge. Easier for us because we’re, we are an international business, right? So it’s much easier for us because we have people from all over the world who want to be on these panels. But it is a challenge balancing some of these things. It is. As is judging, you know.

Pat Murphy:

And I think you’ve chosen some topics that are quite… I wouldn’t call controversial but quite challenging in the title. So ‘how do we put a value on creativity’ is a great title, I think, you know, because I think there’s always this race to the bottom on price when it comes to evaluating creativity. So I, that’s gonna be a really interesting one. And then you’ve got me strangely on one of your panels, so you must have been scraping the barrel there, right?

Matt Cooper:

<Laugh> of course. Look, I mean that you are on one about production and what clients really want. I mean, Pat, you, you know this stuff. You’re working with a big percentage of the world’s clients and you, you know what these guys want. And you’re gonna be alongside, you know, Steve from the APA and Daniel from Craft, and there’s gonna be some good people there with a client and various others. But I think, I think what they’re gonna be, these things is meaty. I think they’re gonna be meaty discussions. You know, value on creativity is one of those things that we talk about constantly, don’t we? Agency of records and how do sell creativity now, what does it mean? I think it’s gonna be a really interesting conversation. And the blend of people we’ve got on these panels is, it is phenomenal. So, I mean, you know, the concept is ‘better together’, but let’s see what happens on the day. I think there’s gonna be some, some quite thorough discussion!

Pat Murphy:

Anybody who’s listening to this can go to your website. They can see the panel sessions, the topics, and also the panelists who are going to be on those panels as well. What’s the website address?

Matt Cooper:

It’s lbbonline.com.

Pat Murphy:

Fantastic, Matt, thanks very much. And I’ll tell you what, we are so proud at MCA to be supporting you on this week of panel sessions. It’s the first time we’ve done this with you. It’s been an experience going through the last two or three months crafting it and shaping it with you.  I’m dead chuffed with it. Can’t wait to see you in Cannes in a couple of weeks time.

It was so great catching up. I look forward to seeing you. But finally, before we jump off here I need to ask you that question that we always ask any of our guests on the podcast is, what is your favourite ad of all time?

Matt Cooper:
VW Snow plough, without any shadow of a doubt.

Pat Murphy:

That’s one of the very, very early ads. <Laugh>.

Matt Cooper:

It’s just… you know, I get asked this question a lot and I think that when you watch it, and I watched it again, I did an interview for a Finnish marketing magazine the other day. I sometimes try and change it up cuz there’s others that I love longer. We all do. There’s loads of ads that we love.

But when I watch that one back, I just, it’s just perfect. It’s just absolutely perfect and, you know, it’s, it’s selling a small German car. It’s just, it’s just brilliant. You know, that, that the, the film, the words, it’s just, to me it’s a perfect ad.

Pat Murphy:

Terrific. Matt, thank you so much.

Today we talked to Matt Cooper, my friend Matt Cooper, founder and CEO of LBB. And I wanna say a big thank you to you, Matt, for talking to me today. We had a very insightful conversation about the LBB platform and the preparation for Cannes week, which is not far away.

To find out more about the MCA Prodcast, please head to theprodcast.com where you’ll find details on all my guests, links to their favourite ads and full transcriptions of all the episodes.

If you have any comments, questions, or feedback, please email us at podcast@murphycobb.com. I’m Pat Murphy, CEO of MCA. Do come and connect with us on LinkedIn or Instagram, of which all the links in the notes for this episode will be there. We’d love to hear from you.

Thanks again to you, Matt, my team at MCA and to my production team at What Goes on Media.

Thanks for listening. See you next time.