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’re talking to Matt Miller, President and CEO of the Association of Independent Commercial Producers, the AICP, in the USA. The association has national offices in New York and Los Angeles, as well as regional offices across the country, and his members account for around 80% of commercial advertising production in the US.

Prior to joining AICP, matt was director at the ANA, the Association of National Advertisers. So perfect grounding for being a passionate champion for the production industry, being very active for his members, appearing regularly on television and at conference panels as well to discuss the creative aspects of the advertising and media industry.

Matt, thanks for being here and agreeing to discuss our shared passion: advertising production.

Matt Miller
Fantastic. Thanks for inviting me, Pat, nice to see you.

Pat Murphy
Now, Matt. Firstly, huge congratulations are in order, as I believe you just passed your 30th year at the AICP.

Matt Miller
I did! Hard to believe, but yes, 30 years at AICP. In the US we have the day April 1st, April Fool’s Day, which is ironically my start anniversary my start anniversary! So, um, when I get flooded with linkedin work anniversaries somehow I always think first it was a joke. But uh, I realized yes, it’s been 30 years at AICP.

Pat Murphy
That’s a big milestone. What do you think was the secret ingredient to still being there after all that time?

Matt Miller
I don’t know if it’s putting my neck out or keeping my head low, but it’s one of those two, or a mixture thereof.

Pat Murphy
Now I suppose the first question I have to ask you is what have you seen changed in the industry over all of that time, the last 30 years? What have been the highlights and even the lowlights as well?

Matt Miller
It’s interesting, I think probably more has stayed the same than changed. I think technology obviously innovates and changes different dynamics of creative output in what’s capable and workflows and various pieces but the artistry and the creativity and everything that people bring in the collaborative craft of commercial production, I think, is relatively unchanged and is something that we track on an annual basis. Looking through our award shows and various things that you actually do see a commonality between what was going on 30 years ago and what is going on today.

Pat Murphy
Now, whilst I was doing a bit of research, I found you in… it looks like you love being in front of the camera. I found you there with my news anchor hero, Lester Holt, and you’ve been on the Today Show. How many times? I think you’ve been on there so many times now you’ve lost track. It seems you love being in front of the camera. Have you missed your vocation?

Matt Miller
Perhaps. Yeah, I spent a lot of time at 30 Rock on the Today Show for about 15 years talking about creativity, advertising. Interestingly enough, originally not around the Super Bowl but around the winners of our award show each year. It’d be the next morning which sometimes can be a little rough after a large party of over 2000 in the Stolzscher Garden and Museum of Modern Art. And then became sort of a voice as people got more interested in the Super Bowl and wanting to know both what was happening behind the scenes as well as the story of why advertising takes such a cultural phenomenon on around that time of year.

So it was interesting. We went through a lot of twists and turns on there. I will say that one of the more proud moments was really working with RSA and one of their Clydesdale pieces and having the idea and bringing it to the Today Show of bringing a crew to shoot behind the scenes, of shooting a Clydesdale piece with uh, with Jake Scott and it ended up being so successful that every network started doing it after that. But I think bringing people behind to see just what goes into advertising, is important both for people in the business and people outside the business to get a real appreciation of the creative talent of commercial filmmaking.

Pat Murphy
It’s great, and we have a great relationship with RSA as well. And I think I worked Jake on one of his very earliest ads when I was based in in Germany, so it’s great. He’s come a long way and we still love having a great relationship with that company.

Now, when I was in Cannes last year, I had numerous conversations with production house heads about the impact that technology is going to have on the future of the business. And you said, and I quote ‘while technology creates new distribution opportunities and applications, talent is still the most coveted attribute of any success in the communication arts. Core business of production and post companies is to discover, nurture, train and develop such talent.’ And, of course great talent is important, but we must also embrace and work with this new technology. What’s your guidance, what’s your advice to production houses to kind of bring them along with this whole change?
Matt Miller
Well, I think it’s learning, being curious, not being fearful.

I’ve just come from the TED conference last week, where every industry in the world seems ripe for disruption with AI coming on, but ultimately it’s a collaboration with technology and the proper utilization of technology that ultimately drives things.

Technology is not in itself a creative industry’s fix. It is a tool to be used and harnessed and drive things forward indeed, but there seems to be, when new technologies come about, you get the pundits starting to talk about ‘the end of this or the end of that’, and
comparative aspects of people either being luddites by not embracing it, or you know sort of technophiles who are just pushing technology, technology, technology.

But ultimately the reality is somewhere in between. We’ve seen it time and time again, whether it’s digital cameras or whether it’s digital editing or anything else. I mean sure there’s some displacement of skills. We no longer train people with razor blades to splice film, but, that being said, skill sets do emerge that come out of previous skill sets and talent that are ultimately needed to truly use technology properly.

Pat Murphy
I was talking to Sir John Hegarty about that very thing last week and the importance of storytelling. Isn’t that the absolute key for your production houses to kind of think about? It’s the importance and craft around storytelling.

Matt Miller
Yeah, well, look, I mean, I think John said it himself right you know, ‘great advertising is 80% concept and 80% execution’. I think he said it very well. I think it’s one of those things where you know the story is what connects us with the audience. Proper execution isn’t just about pretty pictures. It really is about getting to the core and connecting an audience with a brand, which in many ways, is harder storytelling than storytelling for the sake of storytelling. We have a brand element. We have to ultimately execute the story but also leave a feeling about a brand that we want left within an audience. And that is a challenging task and that’s why I’m in awe of so many of the creative people in our industry who can do it time and time again.

Pat Murphy
Let’s move on to something else, which is around costs right? The costs of production around the world. We have a global benchmark of rates that we have at MCA – we call it our production index – and the US is one of the most expensive places to produce in the world and increasingly we’re seeing clients move production to lower cost locations, from the USA to places like Mexico.

One of the key driving factors for that is also talent. We have the whole issue around SAG. What is the way that we can get to a better balance? So trying to keep production in the United States so people are still engaged in the work, rather than it moving out to somewhere else. How do we get to that better balance?

Matt Miller
I think there’s a level of reality that has to happen. Unfortunately, this is cyclical. It’s not new that things are traveling outside the country. I think back around the year 2000, we saw almost 30% of the production from the United States leaving just prior to the SAG strike and then continuing through that and afterwards. Ultimately, it’s about competition.

We’re in a global marketplace where more and more resources are available around the world. World-class resources are available around the world. The world. World-class resources are available around the world.

That being said, I am a firm believer that the experience and the depth of talent and resources in the United States is second to none. We have a lot of markets that are very stayed in production, meaning they have a history and they’ve got other media to draw from, obviously Hollywood and Los Angeles. New York – you mentioned SAG has always pulled from the Broadway area, as well as others for talent. So there are certain attributes to US marketplaces that do bring great value to production. That being said, we’re in a competitive environment and so ultimately, on certain jobs, you’re going to look at budgets and you’re going to have to compare it. What tends to bring things around is when things, in this cyclical manner, hit a low point and unions and vendors and various pieces that lend to the cost of the overall production get in a competitive mode as opposed to feeling like they are entitled to work on staying and being with them, and that’s the nature of the world and probably any business in some respect.

Pat Murphy
One of the most interesting and potentially disrupting things we’re seeing happen at the moment is the move that a lot of holding companies, agency holding companies are doing, bringing a lot of the production in-house.

Historically, we’ve seen a very tight relationship between creative agencies and production houses, but things have changed now. The agencies have showed their hand right. They want to retain that revenue and they use all sorts of arguments, of reasons why they’re doing that. With regard to you know, ‘there’s so many more assets that we need to produce. We’re best placed to be able to d o that’. And Richard Glasson, I believe WPP’s Hogarth declared his goal is to add another billion dollars to his bottom line, and much of that is going to come from your members. But can it possibly be transparent? Can it possibly be good value? Can it possibly be best creative? There’s all sorts of questions there. What’s your point of view on that, Matt?

Matt Miller
We have to look at the big picture of how this industry actually functions before we dig into where the problems in that might be. The agency is an agency because e it’s an agent for the marketer and, first and foremost, an agency should be laser focused on the good of their client. I mean, that is why they exist! They are there to manage a brand and manage the brand assets, creative trafficking, media, various elements, depending on what type of agency it is. But the fact of the matter is, when the agencies are focused on other things, like their bottom line and I think the quote that you just referenced is indicative of some of the thinking right now, the agency business is in a tough place. We all know that and we’ve watched it develop.

Some of it’s at the hand of the marketer. The marketer is bringing a lot of things in-house themselves, so the agencies are struggling with the business model of competing with their own client. As such, we’re seeing them trying to develop some level of equity in what they do have, and I think that they look at the big GC production budgets as being potential revenue streams for them. The question is can they do it? Can they do that and stick to their primary goal and reason for being? I believe what we’re experiencing is a lot of experimentation on their behalf that may work in certain circumstances and in many others may not, but we’re seeing different models working and we’re certainly hearing various anecdotal evidence of the ultimate effect on the independent marketplace, which is a needed element to the model that exists.

Pat Murphy
Do you think there’s a conflict there? Because obviously if they’re also looking to access directors from independent production houses and they’re also wanting to bid this out themselves internally, that’s a major conflict.

Matt Miller
Yeah. I would say this. You’ve got a few factors here that do exist when you really break it down. When the agency is the gatekeeper to where work is assigned and one of the elements within the bidding pool is going to be in-house, I would say that is a conflict!

I hear agencies talking about trying to put up firewalls between their production departments and their in-house elements, although the irony is, I think we’re seeing the exact opposite happening and the production departments that had heretofore been managing this process and the relationships with production companies and finding the right solutions for their clients are actually becoming an element or a division of the in-house entity in its current form. So that that conflict is not suited to the best interest of their client, which is what you ultimately have to come back to. At the end of the day, the client has the money and the client is being serviced, and they are going to the agency and ultimately to the marketplace that can execute for the best value for their brand. Okay, that’s the business. So ultimately, the agency needs to be fully transparent with the marketer and the marketer needs to educate themselves. Some of this is on the marketer to look at what is being offered to them, and to see and manage that process themselves, to make sure that, ultimately, the right decisions are being made for the right reasons.

Pat Murphy
And it’s not just a conflict from a financial perspective. It’s also, when you think about it. The industry relies on production houses to nurture new and up and coming talent. They spend a huge amount of money, investment and time as well, making sure these people are at the highest levels, and it takes years. And yet now these holding companies want to loan these directors out to their in-house production units. That’s not a good thing, is it?

Matt Miller
Yeah, well, there are two elements there, and I think the part you hit on there first is ultimately one of the most problematic, which is production companies and post companies have historically invested a great deal in finding, developing and cultivating new talent and a diverse array of talents to keep things fresh, to keep their own companies successful I mean, it’s actually what drives the existence of independent companies is to have the right roster. Right? That’s the product they sell, if you could call a production company having a product. So they need a strong roster and that is one of the most interesting parts of the business production companies developing and continuing to cultivate, reinvent and work with the talent base that they have. I think it’s one of the pieces that is somewhat overlooked or marginalised by the eyes of an in-house company, because they’re looking at it as a bit more mechanical. Execution is mechanical, especially in the post area, but we’ve seen it time and time again and again, the in-house model is nothing new! I mean, companies were trying it, agencies were trying it decades and decades ago, but not to the degree that the holding companies have gotten involved, consolidated this and truly put money. I think that the quote from Hogarth that you were talking about cited that there are 7,500 people on staff currently at Hogarth globally. That’s not how this business tends to operate.

The second piece you mentioned was them trying to loan out the talent from production companies and post companies. And look, I put that on the post and production companies because who in the world even thinks about loaning out their greatest asset, the thing that very much defines their company? If you do that, you are not thinking about the longevity of your own business and there are many techniques used to do it. I’m not going to get into playing lawyer on this, but some of it probably smacks a little bit of interference with contracts that directors and editors have with their companies and sort of the carrot that’s dangled in front of these individuals may or may not have legal issues, but certainly do have moral issues. If you’re going to be an independent company as an agency and have an independent unit, you’re truly going to compete. Grow your own talent. Don’t try to figure out ways to work around it and threaten, coerce, do whatever you might do to bring that talent in-house. Again, I’m not going to speak to legality, but certainly the ethics of that is extremely questionable.

Pat Murphy
What’s your advice for your members as far as talking to clients direct?  When I was talking to a couple of production companies last year in Cannes, I said ‘look, the gloves are off, there’s nothing to stop you. I know that you don’t want to bite the hand that feeds, but they’ve shown their hand now’. So what’s your thinking about going directly to clients? Clients are feeling quite bold these days about working with anyone.

Matt Miller
I think that clients have gotten much more savvy and you know, as we mentioned before, are building entities internally. The degree to which they’ve built their own in-house production units is a little more far and few between with larger marketers taking that position.

But you know you have to look at the focus of the agency and this is where I think the agencies have lost their way a bit. If we go on the way back machine again. One of the true values that agencies brought to the entire process was their ability to have relationships with production and post companies, to really know the talent base, to be able to work with the creative departments and truly make recommendations and oversee where work goes and how it flows and manage that process.

I think in many ways over the years, slowly but surely, the agencies have abdicated that responsibility of overseeing that piece of the business, which is basically why your sector of the industry exists. Marketers looked to their agencies for the responsibility of overseeing the production business and by looking in different ways and by agencies downsizing and gutting their production departments, people like you move from being one of those trusted agency producers to having independent consultancies to work with the marketers to fill that void and, more and more consultancies like yourselves or marketers who build more production capabilities in-house to manage the process, are going to realise that there are many instances where going directly to production companies, post-production companies and making a relationship with them, either on a long-term basis or on a one-off basis, is going to make a lot of sense.

Pat Murphy
Now look, I’m amazed, Matt, at what AI is being able to do, not just from a visual perspective, but also with the reproduction of voices and music and composition. How is this going to impact on the post-production industry? Is traditional CGI kind of a dead art form now? What about voiceovers and scriptwriters and all sorts of talent in the industry? How are they all going to be impacted and compromised? What’s the answer?

Matt Miller
Unfortunately, my crystal ball is out, being fixed today, so I don’t know that I can make that prediction, but AI is going to have a profound influence on this industry. I’ll say it again I don’t think that any technology replaces some level of human creativity and oversight and the management of taste levels and everything else, but the power of generative AI is not something we can even argue.

I was at a conference last week where I saw demonstrations of AI that the year before, at the same conference, were leaps and bounds behind, and now just, it feels like each month we’re seeing new products coming online. You mentioned CGI. The interesting part is look, there’s an element of AI that’s been involved in many of the visual effects tools being used for the last decade. I mean in 3D modeling and various pieces. You’d certainly integrate that within the process and I think that’s what we’re going to have to do.

The issue around generative AI right now that we can’t get wrong is how AI teaches itself and the arguments and the guardrails that need to be in place around intellectual property.  That is a ticking time bomb. I’m not one to look to the government for help. But you need regulation, you need guardrails. You need people who know what they’re talking about to harness this technology so it’s used properly and that, ultimately, artists aren’t exploited on for the work that they’ve done, that which ultimately did teach the tools to do what they’re doing. No small task. It’s a really important piece, but it’s a piece that needs to be in place. We need to get this right. We got so much wrong with the creation of social media and this is so much more powerful than social media, and we need to get this right for the good of ultimately you know not to get too dramatic but for the good of the world, but when you bring it down to our industry. For the rights of creative talent. AI doesn’t operate or teach itself on its own. There’s a core basis there and we need to find the models to work with this to make sure that creative talent is being compensated for the work that they’ve brought or are bringing to the party.

Pat Murphy
I totally agree with you there. Yet there’s still differing frameworks around legalities in the US, obviously, and then you’ve got the European one, and then you have the Chinese one. They’re all very different. Do we think that there’s ever going to be a global approach to this, or not?

Matt Miller
I’d like to say that would be wonderful! I do think that there are various standards within our industry and with many businesses that are globalising. I think that, for good or for bad, there are many aspects of the American production business that have been exported around the world and used as a template in the way production is handled on a global basis. Could that be with AI? I mean again, when we start talking about AI, we’re talking about a much larger monster that works not just in our industry but across many disciplines and industries.

My fear of AI if I had to break it down to a personal fear as I listen to many of the companies that are building the AI machines and they’re moving very quickly is they keep talking about the efficiency of labour and the efficiency of especially low to mid-level labour that prepares elements that can ultimately be used by the people at the top of the food chain and therefore needing less people.

When you’re in an industry that has thrived and developed on apprenticeship and learning through the act of observing those who knew what they’re doing, experimenting and coming up through the ranks, you start gutting out pieces at the lower and mid-rung because it could be somehow revolutionised through automation. You’re taking away a very important training element that ultimately brings the next generation of creative thinkers and creative doers in. And again, that goes across industries. That’s not just our industry, but our industry is very much hands-on apprenticeship training based and therein lies a long-term ticking time bomb for us.

Pat Murphy
Let’s move to something that’s slightly more an area of my passion, which is the area of audio and music. I’ve always thought sound has been a somewhat underrated category as part of driving advertising success. It has such an impact on effectiveness of an ad and yet it’s the bottom of the budget line. So you have all these budget items and then there it is, at the bottom. Should it not just be a bit further up, maybe underneath the production house, particularly when you consider its impact on effectiveness?

Matt Miller
I couldn’t agree with you more. I find composers and composition to be magic! When you put the right audio to a picture, it suddenly comes alive. To quote Lyle Greenfield, who founded AMP and the AMP Awards, it’s amazing what you can see with your ears, and it really is.

I love that award show for so many, so many reasons. I love being affiliated with AMP and all the work that they do. But music is so subjective and it’s something that you have a taste level for and appreciation for, or you don’t. You know, unfortunately, we’re living in a world right now where a generation is growing up where music is valued in a very different way. In the minds of young people who go on TikTok or YouTube or even going back decades to Napster. Music is free and part of being valued is it not being there for the reaching and the taking? And I think that’s been one of the issues that music has in general, but especially in our industry, when you can rip it off there and you can just sort of access various things without working with a composer, a sound designer and really talking about what you’re trying to achieve and then seeing the craft that they do to bring it to life. It somehow gets devalued and the AMP Awards is very much about breaking that down so people can see the value of the crafts.

Pat Murphy
And music in our household is like food for the soul. So my son plays at a jazz band. He’s playing trumpet, and I discovered that you’re a drummer, so this is obviously close to your heart as well. You were a member of The Bicycles for Afghanistan. Tell us a bit about that, Matt!

Matt Miller
Well that was a big part of my college and post college days, being part of a post-punk power trio. Playing around especially the East Coast of the United States and various clubs and everything and, by the way, taught me a lot of lessons I needed to know about showmanship and everything else. Interestingly enough, I had one very important influence on my life, a gentleman named Peter Etter, who said to me ‘don’t forget that everyone in advertising actually thinks they’re in show business, so the fact that you already have been is a great attribute to your career’.

But yeah, Bicycles for Afghanistan was a very interesting band, by the way, named after a chapter in a book by Kurt Vonnegut who used to title all of his chapters, and seemingly such a good name that there is currently a band in Russia named Bicycles for Afghanistan also so people tend to throw something up on the Bicycles for Afghanistan Facebook page. That was created by someone who was affiliated with our band way back, so you can hear BFA music on Facebook, on the BFA page, but once in a while we get messages for this Russian band, which is kind of funny!

Pat Murphy
Are you still drumming?

Matt Miller
Not really, I haven’t drummed in years, though a good friend who is also in the industry. Rich Carter, who has a company brother, got married recently and he called me and said, ‘as my wedding toast, marrying Sue Rosen, I just want to play’. He played saxophone in high school. ‘I want to play Susie Q as my toast to her at the wedding, would you play drums’. So I had to shake off some rust and do just that back in October, which was just great fun Kind of like riding a bike, I guess, in some ways, although I did need some training wheels.

Pat Murphy
Yeah, I told you earlier, you just wanted to be in front of the camera. I was right!

Let’s move on. Sustainability that’s an important part of the future for us at MCA, and in particular as we’re so proud to be the first winners of the AdNet Zero Award for Best Practice in Sustainable Production. But sustainability in our industry, not only is it just a hot and important topic, but it’s about making things happen in real life, right? So virtual production is one of those things that we’ve been working with, because that delivers a massive reduction in carbon footprint as well as being quite cost-effective if you get it right. But does that mean less carpenters and more computer programmers? Is it realistic to ask a carpenter to retrain? How do you go about helping and advising your members on this?

Matt Miller
Well, look, I think a lot of tools are out there. I think virtual production is certainly a tool that can be used in certain circumstances. I think that you know, not all. I don’t think anything comes along and replaces being on location, both for efficiency and for the overall look. But you know, virtual stages are getting better and better in their technology and ultimately, to your point, the things that Unreal Engine are doing, both to drive those and in the box. We keep moving forward and virtual can mean something very different in the next five years.

But sustainability is unbelievably important and we have to look at it in its very core pieces from the beginning. I remember having a meeting about 10 years ago with my dear friend, Sarah Kaus, who started the Swell Water Bottle Company out of passion, and talking to her about the number of plastic bottles just on set. Can we start there? She and that company made an amazing donation to the industry, probably nearing over a million dollars worth of water bottles just within the production business in donation, filtered through many of our events and everything else, just to hit one little element, and I think sustainability is one of those interesting things where you need guidelines. I believe the first guidelines that AICP wrote on sustainability and green practices was probably 15 years ago. I think what you have to understand in a business that has a degree of expectations is even one small element makes an impact. So while we look at carbon footprint, we look at waste and we look at recycling. We look at reduction of things like plastic water bottles and things that are simple. You may not be able to tackle everything on every production. You tackle what you can and it’s a mindset more than it’s an action. It’s a mindset of looking at things and saying where is it feasible to reduce our footprint and to get rid of waste on each and every job, and they’re all going to be different, and I think that’s one of the things that is interesting about our business. We get in front of initiatives and try to swallow the whole thing, because we have people in our business who believe that they can tackle anything, and so they go after everything, but everything is impossible at all times. So what’s important is to not think of ‘oh, we can’t do these guidelines, so this is a failure, so let’s just do it the old way’. No, there are elements you could always bring to every single production. So your point about virtual stages that may be one and that may be for the right cases, but even if it’s not, there are certainly sustainable initiatives you can have in every scenario.
Pat Murphy
It could be, just as small as looking for green energy when you’re out on set or out on location. So when we talked to John Osborne at the back end of last year at AdNet Zero US, he just said ‘you just got to start somewhere’. So it doesn’t matter how small it is, you just need to get on with it.

Matt Miller
That’s right, and if anyone could do it, ozzy can.

Pat Murphy
That’s true, definitely.

DE&I is another important topic as well, and I know that you spoke at the ANA conference in Orlando about getting registered as a DEI owned company or a director, and when I read the ANA report at the back end of last year of supplier diversity, it seems like there’s still a long way to go between what’s being said and reality. Why are we still discussing this in 2024?

Matt Miller
Well, look, it’s important to keep discussing it. I think it’s important to be doing things as well. We’ve created a lot of different initiatives, from the measurement areas that marketers have asked for to programs for training. We developed a program the better part of a decade ago along with the Directors Guild of America to bring along diverse underrepresented directors in our commercial director diversity program, and we have mentorship programs and we have various things. This industry has done quite a bit in diversity and there are a lot of small fledgling programs. Almost the best thing that we can do as an industry is support those programs because they’ve actually had a passion and have been around a long time but just need support and utilization. I think it’s one of the most important things. We’ve hired a vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion on staff and she’s had a great effect on both counseling our members and working with marketers and agencies who have guidelines and initiatives that they want met to look at what is practical and what is not.

But we get back to probably the most important piece that we brought up about the idea of mentorship. I think everybody likes sustainability, is so eager they want to run before they can walk, and the fact of the matter is, people come up through the ranks. We need to grow people into having a real understanding of the business and I think some of the initiatives we’ve seen out there is like, well, we just want directors and producers who are from underrepresented groups. It’s like, well, we need to grow people into being experienced to hold those positions. And you’re right, we need to create those opportunities for exposure, for training and for everything else.

And it will take time, but we need to keep talking about it. We need to keep pushing it. We can’t be frustrated by the lack of growth in a single year of measurement. We need to just keep pushing along the right tracks to make sure that ultimately, we come out at the right place. But again, that’s why the programs in the US like Streetlights, the Made in New York PA program and various programs that truly bring kids from the inner city and train them as PAs and let them grow, can follow the path of the people who came before them. You hear the stories of everyone, right? Everyone in this industry can tell you their first day as a PA. They didn’t just jump in as a line producer and we just need to be dedicating resources and truly be committed to pushing that consistently.

Pat Murphy
Completely agree with you, Matt. That’s fantastic pushing that consistently.

Now we’re running out of time and I want to hear all about your cats and your golf.

Matt Miller
My cats. I wish I could talk about my cats.

Pat Murphy
I hear you just take every old cat that’s kind of you know passes by your house and adopt it.

Matt Miller
My family is just too kind. They got involved in cat rescue and, um, they, uh, they foster cats. There’s one foster cat here I don’t even know when one’s going to be in our house. I happen to be at my home this morning and yeah, I never know when one’s going to show up. Like my wife works with a woman Beth Stern, who is just a marvel in the United States at fostering cats and she’s got a whole program and I don’t know, since COVID there have probably been a hundred or more cats, kittens, mothers that move through.

The good news is that, you know. Good news is that they all leave. They all leave. As was drilled in, the training of them is fostering. If you want to keep them, you are a foster failure. So it is all about rehabbing cats that have been out in the wild, either feral or stray, and finding them a family, which we’re very lucky that Beth has an incredible network and finds them all homes, and relatively quickly, which is really important because they tend to take over my workout room!

Pat Murphy
I can tell you, very happy about that. Is that the reason you go out on the golf course?

Matt Miller
That might be the reason I go out on the golf course yeah, chasing that little white ball, as some say keeps the head clear. Constantly looking to get better.

Pat Murphy
Okay, Finally, Matt, the question we have to ask all of our guests, since it’s become the highlight of our podcast – what’s your favourite ad of all time?

Matt Miller
Oh, wow, that’s like asking what my favourite cat is. Wow, that is one hard question. This is what I’ll say. I will say that the first time I stepped into the big theatre at the Museum of Modern Art to watch advertising with the AICP show on the big screen… I think that that very first year Joe Pytka did this incredible campaign with Hallmark. It hit me here and I went ‘I didn’t know advertising could do that’, the emotion that it pulled out.

Or since you talked about golf, I will say that the one-minute spot of Tiger Woods simply swinging a driver is absolute perfection. By the way, our entire 33-year archive at the Museum of Modern Art is online at AICPAwards.com. Anyone can go there. Look up somebody’s name, search Pytka, and you’ll see everything that he did in that body.

But that one spot of Tiger Woods’ perfect golf swing. In a golf swing, a thousand things can go wrong and it is in slow motion – perfection. And I think the restraint used in not a word being spoken, one instrument being played and a slow motion swing of a true artist like Tiger tells you what we can capture in just one minute.

Pat Murphy
Fantastic. We’re going to post it up onto theprodcast.com.

Matt – been amazing. We’ve never met in person. I’m so looking forward to catching up with you at some point in person over a drink, maybe.

Matt Miller
I would love to, Pat.

Pat Murphy
And I’ve had so much fun talking to you today, so thanks for joining us

Matt Miller
Me as well, Pat. Thank you. Thanks for having me!

Pat Murphy
Today we talked to Matt Miller, President and CEO of the AICP. To find out more about the MCA podcast. 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’d like to feature on the podcast or 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, which all the links in the notes for this episode will be there. We’d love to hear from you.

Thanks again to Matt, my team at MCA and to my production team at What Goes On Media. Thanks for listening. See you next time.