RIP Murphy Chou: A creative legend of the Taiwan advertising industry

The Asian advertising industry is today in mourning over the sudden death of the highly respected creative director Murphy Chou.

Murphy was one of the Taiwan industry’s elder statesmen and took up the role of Chief Creative Officer at Leo Burnett Taiwan in 2013.

Highly regarded and driven, Murphy was a great trainer of young creative talent and has been a continual award winner over his career. It’s a great testament to his leadership and the culture of the agency that the Taiwan office has been the Leo Burnett network’s best performing creative office in Asia over the past 5 years.

His latest campaign for China Airlines is Campaign Brief’s favourite campaign to come out of Asia last year.

Mark Tutssel, Leo Burnett’s former Global Chief Creative Office told Campaign Brief Asia that Murphy had amazing drive to succeed and to produce great creative work. Tutssel highlighted his most recent award winning work – China Airlines “Souvenirs from Travel”,  McDonald’s “Still my little Girl” and Mercedes Benz “The 3 pointed star court”.

“Murphy had the human touch,” said Tutssel. “An eternal student of human behaviour. His passion and drive for creative excellence was second to none. His recent work for China Airlines and McDonald’s is a testament to his prolific talent. He will be missed”.

Murphy had been receiving treatment for rare nasopharyngeal cancer over recent times but had been well and working on campaigns  with his creative teams right up to a few days ago.

RIP Murphy. Our thoughts and prayers are with you, your family and your friends.

Murphy’s Linked In bio is here: Murphy Chou, current Chief Creative Officer at Leo Burnett Taiwan. With 29 years of advertising experience, he had countless successful experience in building new brands and rejuvenating old brands in Taiwan, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Murphy began his adventurous advertising journey in 1989, and his award-winning streak started as early in 1993 including multiple Cannes Lions International Festival Awards, The One Show Awards, CLIO Awards, London International Advertising Awards, World Press Awards, New York Festivals, AWARD Awards, Spikes Asia Awards, Asia Pacific Advertising Festival (AdFest Awards), AD Stars Awards, Red Apple International Advertising Festival, Creativity Awards, The One Show Festival For Greater China, Mobius Awards, Long Xi Grand Awards, Times Asia-Pacific Advertising Awards, Times Advertising Awards, Taiwan 4A Creative Awards, China Great Wall Advertising Festival Awards, China 4A Golden Seal Creative Awards, China Effie Awards… etc. Over 800 awards in total.

Moreover, the campaigns he led did not only result in winning awards, but also effective in sales performance and generated a lot of buzz for the brands. At the same time, he always led the company to win many new business and generate profits. From 2006 to 2008, Murphy’s team made a track record of 12 consecutive successful pitches.

It is proven that Murphy can easily adapt to new working environment and raise the standard of creativity effectively in a short period of time and bringing enviable reputation to the company no matter where he is. Murphy is a highly experienced creative, who is competent in bringing new ideas, directions and culture to a company. The great creative performance of JWT Taiwan, Bates China, Ogilvy & Mather Taiwan, Ogilvy & Mather Shanghai, Firstell Communications China, Newsun/JWT Advertising Guangzhou and Leo Burnett Taiwan are the best evidence of Murphy’s abilities.