WPP’s AKQA and Grey unite to form AKQA Group; Grey agency brand to be dropped after 103 years
WPP’s AKQA and Grey are uniting to form a new network model, AKQA Group. Grey is renowned for creative storytelling and global brand-building at scale, while AKQA is celebrated for its world-class innovation and experience design skills.
With heightened demand for digital transformation and technology-driven capabilities, WPP believes the combination will create a powerful new proposition for clients as a leading creative solutions company with a worldwide footprint.
The AKQA Group will have 6,000 people in more than 50 countries and a blue-chip client roster that includes more than half of the Fortune 500’s top 20. It will provide a full range of brand experience capabilities across all communications platforms, strengthening the skills and services of both companies for clients.
AKQA founder Ajaz Ahmed and Grey Worldwide CEO Michael Houston will partner to lead the new Group. Ahmed will become Chief Executive Officer and Houston will become Global President and Chief Operating Officer of AKQA Group. The AKQA Group will launch with the AKQA and Grey brands, which will be integrated over time into a single company based on client and market needs. The management team and creative leadership will be announced in the coming weeks, comprising leaders from AKQA and Grey.
AKQA and Grey have highly compatible creative cultures and share a common belief in the power of creativity. Between them they have won nearly 600 Cannes Lions in the last decade. The two agencies have complementary, non-competitive client rosters. The combined AKQA Group will have expertise in the media, entertainment and technology sectors as well as packaged goods, healthcare and financial services.
Says Ahmed: “Our goal is to expand horizons, combining the curiosity, ambition, imagination and pioneering spirit of a startup with the reach of a global enterprise. This is an unparalleled opportunity for AKQA and Grey to bring our shared assets to life into a modern, creatively-led company, building upon our inspiring and useful work to create value for our clients, people and communities.”
Says Houston: “This exciting new partnership begins with what consumers expect, clients value, and brands need. Forming a new company that can deliver culture-driving ideas through technology at speed and scale is a potent proposition for our clients, large and small, and will allow us to offer the most powerful creative solutions in the industry.”
Adds Mark Read (pictured), CEO of WPP: “Our clients want outstanding creativity, powered by technology expertise and delivered at a global scale. This new company is designed precisely to meet those needs and is another important step forward in building our future-facing offer for clients.”
Grey, named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, is trusted globally by clients from the fastest-growing startups to leading multinationals and government agencies. Over the past five years, the agency has received top industry accolades for creative effectiveness, including: Adweek Global Agency of the Year (twice), the Grand Effie, Effie Agency of the Year, and Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity Agency of the Year with 395 Cannes Lions. Grey’s growing global Health & Wellness practice counts many of the world’s largest pharma and health-related companies as clients.
AKQA, recognised as a digital pioneer and a creative innovator, has won over 60 Agency of the Year awards; led Gartner’s independent evaluation of Global Marketing Agencies for three years in succession; led IDC’s quantitative and qualitative assessment of success in Customer Experience Design; won two Grand Prix at the most recent Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity; been named by Fast Company as a Best Workplace for Innovators; and achieved a consistent track record of growth since its founding.
The move follows the successful combination of other WPP agencies to create Wunderman Thompson, VMLY&R and BCW, which have been among WPP’s best-performing companies by addressing client needs for more integrated, creative and technology-driven solutions.
26 Comments
Let the hunger games commence.
Does WhiteGREY become WhiteAKQA?
It’s a slow painful death isn’t it.
This is the end, beautiful friend.
It’s finally happening, the very old sacred cows are up for being slaughtered.
GREY was always an apt name. It was a rare example of truth in advertising.
What happens to WhiteGreys leadership team? Weren’t they starting to turn it around
The killing fields continue. Surely the individual brands aren’t the problem with this company. It’s more likely the hefty and cumbersome group cost structures and politics that lie behind them. But that’s how they role. Destroy the brands first and ultimately remove the people. There will be nothing but a spreadsheet left soon.
DTDigitalWhiteAgencyJayGreyAKQA
You forgot Tongue and Switch On Media
I genuinely wonder what the difference between these 3 ‘super agencies’ are from a clients perspective. It feels like WT, VMLY&R and AKQA Group are basically offering the same thing, mainly just existing in name to avoid conflicts within the holding company, otherwise I’m sure Mark Read would just make everything WPP to better position it amongst the McKinseys and BCG lot as the single destination expert.
If by turning it around you mean managing the decline, then sure.
WhuteGrey is doomed. They’ll be eaten by AKQA.
Hmmm, must be a different Grey in Australia. I certainly don’t recognise it from the press release “…AKQA and Grey have highly compatible creative cultures and share a common belief in the power of creativity.”
Grey hasn’t fitted that description since Peter Carey and Bani McSpedden left, many years ago. (Please don’t quote the TAC campaign to me.)
Little wonder the irony of a business designed to build brands closing one of the oldest and biggest ad brand is lost on a leader who can’t count beyond 30 years.
Brutal stupidity.
Are WhiteGrey moving to St Kilda road?
Are the CEO and national MD moving to AKQA?
I hope there are no redundancies. What sad news leading up to Xmas.
A merger is always a takeover. By the company whose name remains.
Such a good point. Indeed, I scanned the comments to see whether someone else was going to say this very thing. And voila!
The truth is that the only thing agencies ever really offered that was unique was an understanding of how to build and sustain brands.
They have lost their point of difference by losing their point of difference!
Indeed, you look at the advertising agencies that the consultancies have purchased. Often, they were the ones that stood out in the marketplace.
It looks as though the consultancies know more about branding than agencies.
WTVMLY&RAKQA
Getting rid of so many MDs CEOs CSOs CCOs will lead to MASSIVE cost savings and protects junior staff. It’s vicious but agency life.
Why? Why? Other than the bottom line, reducing staff and costs? Why?
What on earth could it possibly do to help clients? Creativity? Effectiveness?
Just how much will they save for shareholder dividends; but lose more in the long run?
It’s not a good day for our industry when an agency brand that’s been around for over 100 year disappears overnight. And yes maybe you’re right and we are headed for less and less agencies but that unfortunately means less and less jobs for people like us who read this blog. Nothing to celebrate here.
Change of heart https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/wpp-keep-grey-brand-for-time-wont-rush-drop-akqa-merger/1700081
Rot set in at Grey a LONG time ago with a previus CEO…his constant drive to shrink costs and inflate profits created nothing but a hollow shell. The politician was eventually found out…you can’t add so little value for so long without it costing someone.
This is the cost. I feel genuinely sorry for all the people about to be hurt.
We all know how that ended. Best of lucks to ALL involved in this latest saga.
It hasn’t ended. Where is VMLY&R Sydney now?
Still happening withing WPP AUNZ…
https://www.adnews.com.au/news/wpp-aunz-says-whitegrey-will-sit-within-akqa-group