George Patterson celebrates 75 years
November 12 2009, 5:13 pm | | 43 Comments
Last night George Patterson celebrated 75 years since first opening its doors on Remembrance Day, 1934. The venue was the Establishment which was actually the company’s first premises. Here are a few pics from the evening.
43 Comments
Must be Movember.
While the crew down here in Melbourne did … hang on, nothing at all to celebrate. Thanks allowing the current staff to be involved in such a momentous occasion. Makes you feel incredibly valued. Yes. Valued.
Lovely touch how they didn’t invite any of the current workforce bar management. Way to go team builders.
Don’t worry. Even people who spent 15-20 years at the agency in senior positions were never invited or even told it was on, yet I see pics of people at the event who just passed through for a year or three.
Bart and Robbie did you co-ordinate your outfits?
Lovely touch how you could work there for three years and not be invited.
Don’t worry, I worked there for 8 years, won pitches for them, won awards for them, gave up my youth and health for them, and still didn’t get invited. Some things never change.
Saddest event I have ever been to… more like a wake
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Sydney office always pretended Melbourne didn’t exist, now I see they’re still doing it.
They could never get over the fact that Melbourne was always a great agency, and that Sydney was crap.
Hey 9.55,
Why should they invite current workers, it was celebrating 75 years of GP not GP/Y&R. And if you were old enough to be around when they were GP maybe you would have been invited too. Moron!
To the anonymous gutles wonder(s). How can you work for an advertising agency when you don’t understand what brand building is about. Patts is trying to rebuild a once great brand and all you can do is bitch anonymously. Two things – if you have a problem, go see management and keep it internal, don’t damage the brand that many of us, who were at the event, helped build over many years. Secondly, if you have any honour you would resign from the company immediately and stop drawing a wage. You talk about building a team, well, who ever you are you’re not helping.
Mark Killey Ex Patt
Thanks Mark and 1.52 but many people have spent many long hours slaving. battling and trying to do our best to help build the brand and for whatever reason weren’t invited, so how would you expect those people to react? Its very typical of everyone involved in recent and current management to remember only a chosen few and their questionable legacy.
Do you reckon they invited James McGrath?
Oooh, this is great stuff. Keep the bitterness coming, ants.
well I’ve never worked for Patts (but do work with) and was there.
I agree with Mark Killey.
My favourite moment was Hamish welcoming by name and saying thanks to his two ex amigos – Matt McGrath and Mike Morrison – neither of whom actually came to the event.
It must be hard to track down everyone who thinks they shld have been invited. The agency is 75 years old after all.
I drew up the invitation list. There were some 200 ex-Patts staffers on it and many made it on the night.
To those who worked there and didn’t receive an invite, my apologies. I did not have a contact or email address for you.
Bruce Jarrett. OTC. Gold.
Wednesday night was never about individuals. It wasn’t about which office in the Patts network was better. It was simply a celebration of a great brand and the great work they’ve created over the years for some very happy clients.
Simple!
If noses are out of joint because certain individuals weren’t invited, get over it.
It was never about you.
But who was it about? I know a lot of people who spent ten to 20 years at Patts in senior positions and involved in mega campaigns who never got an invite – or even heard the thing was on, even years later.
Bruce Jarrett. OTC. Gold.
Match that you whingeing BOCs
i was there on Wednesday night and it was a great night, done in style. it was actually an honour to be in the room. The reel of ads they showed was evidence of the impact Patts has had (and i’m sure will continue to have) on our industry.
Yea Tim!
It was a great night and fabulous to catch up with a bunch of people who really love the place…….there are still quite a few of us around!
ex-Patt of the 70s & 80s
It would have been pretty easy to use this site to issue an invite to ex-employees.
Having worked at Patt’s for over nine years, some 20 years ago, I can certainly say the night was a great opportunity to catch up with so many not seen for so long.
I did not get an invite, but I also did not get refused entry as I stepped out of the lift – quite the opposite.
And even though the building has been completely gutted and remodelled, it was quite a blast sharing a drink in the very same spot, with the very same people as you did over 20 years ago. Drinks in the studio – great memories.
If that’s a wake – I can live with it.
Patts used to be great. It isn’t so great now because many feel a select few used Patts to feather their own nest and much of what made Patts great was lost in the process. So, you have to expect a bit of bitterness, because many ex-Patts staff are still angry about that.
In truth, the whole event is a bit of a fraud.
Sure, celebrate 75 years since Patts was born, get together and have fun with good people you worked with years ago, but don’t pretend to be celebrating Patts’ 75th Year.
Patts never made it to 75 years. It died years ago, late last century. (The cause of death? Suspicious circumstances – looks a bit like murder.)
It’s like eating a Cherry Ripe and celebrating MacRobertson’s. It’s silly. Cadbury took them over years ago and MacRobertson’s, who invented the Cherry Ripe, don’t exist any more.
Same with Patts.
A great part of Australian ad history. But just history now.
while you’re at it 2.27 you may as well go and kill DDB (owned by Omincom), Ogilvy (owned by WPP), Mojo (bought and sold too many times to remember by the same people) and any other global mutli-national brand in advertising!
Don’t be so ridiculous.
If Patts want to continue to stand for their history and DNA – “Iconic, Australian advertising and business moments” – then good on them.
It’s as good as any, if not better than most.
Pass the Cherry Ripe – love the dark chocolate and cherries in them – been that way for years……
I have studied the available photographs closely. No sign of the murderers returning to the scene of the crime.
I can’t see what all the fuss is about? I was invited and given that I pretty much ran Patts Melbourne for the whole fricken time I was there I was more than pleased, no honoured to represent the Melbourne office. You don’t hear the likes of Haycock, Jones, Alex (can’t spell his last name) and all those other juniors that I educated in the fine art of advertising complaining, do you? No ’cause that just not the Patts way.
Yours at lunch.
K. Meir
PS I did think it was a little strange however that Bosma and Banners weren’t here however.
Couldn’t have put it better myself Kev. You were always a leaders leader. The way you stood tall to protect your staff from the ravages of management was nothing if not inspirational. No, on second thoughts it was nothing.
Who the hell was Alex anyway?
Col
re Nov 19th, 8.30PM
Martinique is particularly pleasant at this time of year!
Just for the record Kevin Mier did not make the comment posted on November 24th. The real one knows how to spell his surname correctly.
To whomever it was you might be wise to check the dosage on your medication.
Almost a year after the event, I just stumbled upon this site. George Patterson was more than an advertising agency. It was an “institution”. Good to see Harry Griffiths in one of the photos. Young Harry was a legend in his own right and a foundation stone of the GP legend. Yes..I too served my time there. 1960 to 1972 (give or take a year or two with sister agency Hobson Bates in London). It’s a pity to see such a great occasion degenerate into a bitch session of comments above. I was 15yo messenger boy when I started there and a 27yo wise guy when I was finally sacked for political reasons. It was the best education anyone could wish for and I haven’t looked back since. (Until now, that is.)
Peter….drop me an email……and let me know if you have any photos from Hobson Bates and our trip round Europe!!!!!!
Mike
I too stumbled upon this much later with some perspective, and no one will even read this but…
Sad, the people who are responsible in recent times for Patts highest point of success after the relatively flat 90s and most famous moment in the past ten years (now what would that be? Clue: in top ten ads of the decade, best beer ad in 15 years according to One Show) were not even invited.
Understandable on one hand because of bitterness around their exit (blame due on both sides) but all the same, poor form in denying their contribution. I see in this thread evidence that Patts was desperate to re-write history.
Kudos to current Patts team for creating ongoing great work in not always easy circumstances but lets not forget when it all turned around…
The 90s may have been flat for Patts Sydney, but it was huge for Patts Melbourne, with world class campaigns for Yellow Pages, Shell, Nissan, CUB and various other accounts. But Sydney was pretty much always creatively behind Melbourne.
I worked at George Patterson in Sydney from 1958 to 1963 . I have lived for the past 40 plus years in Canada and on visits to Sydney have wandered down to the former Bulletin Building and marvelled at its transformation into a very sophisticated bar venue. I had a drink in what was probably the Production Department when I worked there.
To put the timing of more than fifty years ago into perspective, George Patterson himself was still very much alive and was there as non-executive Chairman .My first job included driving him places in his giant Oldsmobile.
It is so good to see that GP has grown, prospered and evolved to be part of an international organisation.
If anyone knows Peter Hughes…(he has made a comment above) please ask him to send me an email…..I worked with Peter at Hobson Batesin London in the 1970s and would like to get in touch with him again.
Thanks for any help that you can give.
My email address is mikewalker0249@gmail.com
My dad Bob Walker made George Pattersons Melbourne his life after the war until retiring hurt/outraged at the sale of the agency and turning to writing books and an advertising column in the Age. As children we visited the office many times and in our best behaviour met Mr Patterson. To this day in an out if the way spot hangs an appalling painting of chooks. I hate to think that those many years of Dad’s loyalty are soured by labels like “the enemy”. I have no idea when all of the above was written so pribably soeaking to myself.
I used to read that column in the late 70s and the early 80s. Always a good read. I remember there used to be a great video in the agency of your father introducing the agency reel – would have been done in the 60s. Brilliant for how it displayed the nature of Patts and the advertising attitude of that era.
I worked at Pats for 6yrs in the 70s my boss was Jeff Cousins and I worked as an art director with CD Ross Quinlivan and Bruce Jarret I would like to be in contact with other exPatts I live at Newport Beach nsw my number is 0434585968
Funny. 20 years at Patts Melbourne, up until 2003, and this is the first time I’ve heard about this event. Which probably explains why the place doesn’t exist anymore. A great agency destroyed by one generation of management. But they made themselves rich, so that’s all right then…