Grey Worldwide

Well, can’t win ‘em all, BSSP, which had handled the Radio Shack account for the last three years. After a six-month review, Grey New York has followed up its Emergen-C win by picking up creative duties for f0r the electronics retailer, which always seems to have a nice pair of headphones handy. Anyhow, here’s the memo sent from Grey CEO Jim Heekin, president/CCO Tor Myhren and managing director Michael Houston:

“We wanted to share the tremendous news with you that Grey New York has won the Radio Shack account after a hard-fought competition that began five months ago.  Radio Shack spent nearly $210 million last year, making this win one of the largest in our history and one of the largest reviews in our industry this year.

We will lead creative strategy and execution for Radio Shack’s entire marketing ecosystem: in stores, television, online, social media, mobile media, digital media, print, outdoor and other categories including Hispanic communications across all channels.

Radio Shack is one of America’s leading national retailers of mobile/technology products with 34,000 employees and over 7,000 locations.

Congratulations and thanks to Suresh Nair, Rick Cusato, Alex Lubar, Deb Freeman, Claudia Strauss (Alliance), Doug Livingston, Jeff Odiorne, Andrew Speyer (Wing) and everyone who gave their all to this incredible effort.  We are going to hit the ground running and we’ll need every ounce of your creativity and commitment going forward.

Our new client said “Grey ranks among the most respected, innovative and creative agencies in the advertising landscape.  We are thrilled for the opportunity to collaborate with this team as we continue transforming our brand.”  We couldn’t say it better ourselves or be more proud of you.

Enjoy your holiday weekend.

Cheers,
Jim, Tor and Michael”

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

From Grey London and Hungry Man UK comes the above PSA for the British Heart Foundation. Fans of violent action movies will immediately recognize the spot’s star as Vinnie Jones, the former Welsh soccer star (and sultry lounge singer) perhaps best known to Americans for his portrayal of “Bullet Tooth Tony” in the 2000 Guy Ritchie film Snatch. The man is an enforcer on the field and on the silver screen.

Perhaps more important than Vinnie Jones’ awesome personal history is how he’s helping save lives in “No Kissing.” Apparently, new breakthroughs in medical science or something have proven that mouth-to-mouth is no longer a necessary component of proper CPR administration. That’s right, easily manipulated lifeguards of the world. You no longer have to engage lip locks to save lives. All you need is some Bee Gees on a boombox, your own two hands, and the silly British version of emergency medical services to ensure your breathless subject stays alive. Listen to Vinnie, it’s “not as hard as it looks.” Credits after the jump.

Read more

Well, here’s a nifty way to unveil a new brand identity. Just over two months after WPP announced that Grey and Ogilvy were planning to launch a new joint operation in Sweden, the Stockholm offices of both shops have finally revealed the name of the newly merged outfit: Ingo.

How they went about it was rather interesting, in that Grey and Ogilvy solicited Facebook profile pictures on a vague site that featured the headline, “Only You Can Show Us Our New Name.” It took just four hours and nearly 3,000 faces to help create a mosaic that eventually pulled the curtain off of Ingo, which will house approximately 70 staffers with nearly half working directly on creative delivery.

Sir Martin Sorrell adds another one to the fold as his WPP-owned Grey unit acquired Yolk Pte Ltd., a Singapore-based shop that offers services including digital strategy, email marketing, search, viral, etc. etc.. In a statement regarding Yolk, which counts clients including Canon and Microsoft across Asia, Grey Group chairman/CEO Jim Heekin says, “”The acquisition of Yolk is another clear signal of Grey’s commitment to place digital at the core of our business and deliver powerful, seamless offline and online marketing solutions. The digital services space is growing exponentially and this move adds to our competitive advantage in the marketplace.” Well, the Webby-winning Yolk does call itself “digitally daring” after all.

Now that Grey NY has seemingly adjusted to its “faster environment” via the new space, the agency’s CCO Tor Myhren is getting a promotion to president. Myhren will remain on as chief creative officer, but will become the agency’s first-ever creative to lead the flagship office.

As for his pedigree, Myhren joined Grey as CCO in 2007 from Leo Burnett Detroit, where he was ECD on the GM business. Prior to that, Myhren was a CD at TBWA\Chiat\Day LA and was a founding member of Wongdoody. During his tenure at Grey, though, Myhren has led work on the DirecTV business and Lindsay Lohan‘s fave campaign, the Super Bowl E*Trade baby spot, along with helping the agency win clients such as the NFL and Red Lobster in the process.

Myhren will continue reporting to Grey Group’s chief exec, Jim Heekin, who says in a statement regarding Myhren’s bump up, “This well-deserved promotion, coming as we close the best year in Grey New York’s history, recognizes the pivotal role Tor has played in our successful revitalization and opens a new chapter in our emergence as an industry leader.”

It seems to have taken a little while for Grey’s NYC operation to find an official new president. If you remember, Steve Hardwick left Grey in early 2009.

From the pages of Jezebel comes this sordid tale of a couple of beauties looking to get what’s allegedly owed to them. The saga involves Polish models Anna Jagodzinska (left) and Anne Aleksandra Cywinska along with Estonian Karmen Pedaru, who are suing their former agency, Next, claiming that it stole their money and refuses to pay them. In the process, it appears that Grey Paris and Laird and Partners have been thrown into this whole tussle according to the account statement below, which was part of several documents filed by the aforementioned models at Manhattan Supreme Court.

According to Jezebel:

“Jagodzinska’s biggest pending payments are $60,000 that she’s owed by H&M, $35,000 from the creative agency Laird & Partners, which produces ads for a variety of luxury companies (Jagodzinska was in a Bottega Veneta campaign and a Donna Karan campaign around the time of the job, November 2009, both of which were Laird & Partners ads), and a whopping $172,500 from Grey Paris, another production house. Presumably that is for another campaign.”

That’s a pretty “whopping” sum indeed, but since this is dated April 23, 2010, perhaps the agencies involved have already paid up. Regardless, we’re checking if Grey Paris has any comment. The biggest takeaway from all of this, though, is that the Vogue folks are cheap bastards.

Update: Grey Paris tells us that they did in fact pay up (and yes, as a commenter pointed out, it is Next that’s the target of the suit here). Here are the elements courtesy of Grey:

-          Contract established by Platinium Rye Entertainment

-          Purchase order sent to Next

-          Invoice received from Next

-          Payment made via Bank transfer to Next on April 2010 the 30 th for a campaign beginning on May 2010 the 1 st

This DIRECTV spot from Grey NYC aired during the World Series, and I’ve gotta say, I actually dig it. Granted, if commercials were real, I’d totally sue if shit was flying through my walls. However, if this technology worked for my porn channels, I wouldn’t mind if stuff erm, ya, nevermind.

TiVo already uses this technology, but I guess by giving it an acronym like “MRV” (Multi-Room Viewing), the satellite brand thinks that they’re doing something first. Whatever. The commercial’s cool, so I kinda don’t care.

Matheson Gerds president, director of client Services Rob Gerds is headed to Grey West to begin work as the agency’s new managing director. Gerds, who’s spent the last six years in Atlanta at MG, will now oversee the San Francisco and Los Angeles operations that comprise Grey West and will report to Brad Fogel, president of West and Grey Atlanta.

Before Matheson Gerds, the new MD spent six years as director, account services at  BaylessCronin in the ATL. During his 25-year career, Gerds also held senior account management positions at McFarland & Drier, Hal Riney & Partners and FCB, Santa Ana and worked with clients ranging from Pizza Hut to Ford. As for Grey itself, the agency is expected to appoint a new CD at their San Francisco office in the near future.

More: “Red Lobster Biz Goes to Grey NY“

Josh Golden has joined Grey NY as its first CDO and will oversee all digital communications and “set and implement the agency’s digital vision.” Golden joins Grey’s flagship office from Euro RSCG New York, where he was managing director, digital for the past three years. Prior to that, he served as group director, digital marketing at NBCU and had a five-year stint at Y&R’s Big Apple branch, where he helped launch the agency’s interactive group.

More: “Grey NY Welcomes New Chief Strategy Officer”

It took a week, but Red Lobster has finally made a decision and the Darden-owned seafood chain has chosen Grey New York over Saatchi & Saatchi as its AOR. According to the Grey camp, there was a staff meeting this morning to confirm the news. Estimated billings for Red Lobster are said to be in excess of $115 million.

Grey, though, is no stranger to Darden as it’s served as the holding company’s AOR for Olive Garden since 1987 and LongHorn Steakhouse since 2008. In a statement, Red Lobster’s EVP, marketing Salli Setta says, “Grey demonstrated superb creativity, strategic thinking, integrated capabilities and a deep understanding of the casual dining marketplace. We look forward to working with this great team to leverage the growth and success of Red Lobster in the years ahead.”

More: “Red Lobster Visited Grey, Saatchi Today…and Still No Answer”