Tom Murphy
Chief Creative Officer, VML Northeast
Office
- New York
Tom Murphy is Chief Creative Officer of VML Northeast.
Tom joined VML nearly two years ago, lured by the chance to elevate then-Wunderman Thompson’s creative reputation. Since then, Tom has been the driver of some of the agency’s most visible work and new business wins and a key player in post-merger VML’s strategy to leverage creativity with brand experience, customer experience and commerce.
At VML, Tom has leaned on humor and comedic star power for the agency’s Super Bowl work including this year’s combination of SNL’s Kate McKinnon and Pete Davidson for Hellmann’s “Mayo Cat” To demonstrate that the perfect grilled cheese sandwich features mayo on the outside of the bread, Hellmann’s was banned from inside the city limits of Toast, NC for National Grilled Cheese Day. He championed the wildly surreal cult-like aesthetic for Obey Tongue for Sir Kensington’s and the low fi Gold Peak iced tea lens to create Instagrammable Golden Hour photos.
Some of his most impactful work for the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism’s “Stand Up to Jewish Hate” earned a Gold Effie and Grand Effie contender for its effective portrayal of the small size of Jewish population is and how largely it is impacted by hate. More importantly, the campaign continues to inspire bystanders to show their support for the Jewish community, as evidenced in its Oscars ad which retold the story of solidarity between a local church and neighboring temple, which received a bomb threat during a bar mitzvah ceremony.
Tom also helped to launch Mended Murals for Vaseline, which restored street art in Black communities to connect the community to Black dermatologists for skin cancer screenings.
Prior to joining WT Tom was CCO of McCann New York. He’s proud to have been a part of culture-touching ideas including Fearless Girl for State Street Global Advisors, True Name for Mastercard, Universal Love Songs for MGM Resorts.