Grey in ‘forward thinking’ after nudeJEH takeover

What was the secret behind driving Grey Group to become Adweek’s Global Agency of the Year in 2015?
Delivering famously effective business solutions and innovative ideas to our clients.

What is your vision for Grey Group in the next three to five years?
Organic growth supported by acquisitions when needed. Grey is moving in the right direction. We want to continue heading towards [being] the most forward-thinking agency and grow from the foundation of being regarded as one of the most creative network agencies in the world.
What is your key business philosophy and how is this reflected in the agency?
Delivering innovative and groundbreaking work with the best business solutions for our clients. Going beyond the call of duty to establish long-term relationships.

What are your thoughts about the advertising landscape in Thailand, with GREYnJ United recently being named Digital Agency of the Year 2015 at the Adman Awards ?
GREYnJ United’s reputation for excellence fits in well with our “famously effective” culture. It will add to our growth in this important economy. They have done fantastic campaigns such as “The Waiters’ Mom” and “Fulfil” for their client Bar B Q Plaza, as well as proving their success on the global stage like winning at Cannes Lions and Spikes Asia. The acquisition of nudeJEH has been a great success with immediate benefits to the clients.
They have access to Grey Group’s offerings such as its in-house broadcast production facility, GreyWorks, its full-service digital and social-media agency, Grey
 Digital, and its shopper-marketing agency, Grey DPI.

Have any experiences from your childhood or youth helped shape you for the business world?
Don’t let adversity or the unexpected challenges that life throws at you define you.

How did you differentiate Grey Group from the other agencies?
By emphasising creativity above and sometimes at the expense of everything else, across disciplines. Good advertising is still about storytelling and deep consumer insight. The way you tell the story has changed because of technology.

What events or campaigns in 2015 surprised you?
It would be #thedress (is it white-and-gold, or black-and-blue?). The speed with which the debate spread over a “dress” demonstrated the power of sharing information on the Internet.

What events in 2015 were below your expectations?
The economies of various countries in Asia-Pacific – China, Indonesia, Malaysia and India slowed down and their performance overall was below expectation. The price of oil tanking. I think we are all hoping for a global recovery and a positive outlook for the future.

What trends do you predict will take off in 2016?
I would say it would be the Internet of Things (IoT) – machine to machine (m2m) communication with the ability to gather, measure, evaluate and interpret data.
It will become substantially bigger, and I do foresee it being an engine for innovating smart products and services in order to engage consumers.

What was your favourite Grey campaign for 2015?
“Life Saving Dot”, which won the Cannes Innovation Lion and Produce Design Lion. This was a very special moment for us at Grey. “This Bike Has MS” – also a great campaign for a worthy cause – raising awareness for multiple sclerosis. “LifePaint” for Volvo.

What would be the one piece of advice you would give to people in the advertising industry?
With our creativity and our understanding of technology, we can go beyond advertising and communication, and look at problems and how we can help the world.
Finding solutions to help create social change, or what we call “solvertising”.