O histórico artista norte-americano Tony Bennett vai ser o protagonista do seminário "Talking Music", organizado pela Grey Worldwide e que será dedicado à importância da música para as marcas. O seminário realiza-se dia 18 de Junho, quarta-feira, pelas 12h, e levará ainda ao palco o filho e manager de Tony Bennett, Danny Bennett.

Tim Mellors, chief creative officer global e vice-presidente da Grey Worldwide e Josh Rabinowitz, director de música da Grey Nova Iorque e colunista da Billboard Magazine, completam os participantes.

"Não há nenhum cantor popular vivo que tenha o pedigree e experiência de Tony Bennett no que toca a dar insights informativos sobre como é marquetada e feita a música", revelou Tim Mellors.

Grey Worldwide has won the Honk Kong Tourism board account. The agency snagged a three-year contract covering 18 global markets, which Adweek is estimating to be in the $50 million value range. WPP's MindShare will handle planning and buying on the business.

Sorry, but Grey landing this one causes a chuckle to tickle my throat. Hong Kong is cemented in many minds as a mover and shaker, idea, creativity and savvy business oriented republic in comparison to China or well, lots of places. So, how is it that death star agency Grey landed the account? Hmmm... Their last agency of record was DraftFCB, so maybe the board is blinded by the multiple worldwide offices? If that's the case, then in three years the tourism board will be signing up with McCann.

First of all, a bit of deep birthday philosophicalishness. I wonder what Old Scratch himself, Anton Szandor LaVey, has to say about birthdays?

The highest of all holidays in the Satanic religion is the date of one's own birth. Every man is a god if he chooses to recognize himself as one. So, the Satanist celebrates his own birthday as the most important holiday of the year. Despite the fact that some of us may not have been wanted, or at least were not particularly planned, we're glad, even if no one else is, that we're here! You should give yourself a pat on the back, buy yourself whatever you want, treat yourself like the king (or god) that you are, and generally celebrate your birthday with as much pomp and ceremony as possible. After one's own birthday, the two major Satanic holidays are Walpurgisnacht and Halloween (or All Hallows' Eve). The solstices and equinoxes are also celebrated as holidays, as they herald the first day of the seasons.

Well awright! You heard it from the Great Satan himself! This is Shanoah Alkire's high holy day! (Oh gods, I shudder to think of the implications...)

And speaking of Great Satan, one of his little pets wants to wish you a happy birthday, courtesy of forourhappiness...

Yes, Shanoah, like the purple firemaking hellspawn sez: Everyone is special! I'll wait for the screaming to subside before moving on.

You'll be surprised at what you turn up when you type "happy birthday" into YouTube and then let it run wild. F'rinstance, there's the obvious, like a supposedly "rare" recording of the Beatles doing the Happy Birthday song, courtesy of edved10062...

... and of course a "late Marilyn Monroe" singing Happy Birthday to JFK at his 45th birthday in 1962, courtesy of dumbbrunettegal1. On a morbid note, she'd die later that year, and JFK a year later in Dallas, Texas.

Then there's the not-so-obvious... like creepy CGI fish singing Adam Sandler's Happy Birthday Song (animation from John McMillan, movie put up by nthekiller)...

... to this Claymation movie called Happy Birthday Sarge!, which tells you why you should never give Harry Callahan a stripper-in-a-cake (courtesy of aniBOOM)...

... to this rather puzzling (but sweet) commercial from something called Grey Worldwide (courtesy of MaxBabEz).

We'll end this post with something that has you written all over it, Shanoah: a Kingdom Hearts AMV for Weird Al Yankovic's own Happy Birthday Song (which, strangely enough, seems to be a rather popular song for AMVs...). Courtesy of racks274.

Guy Seese is joining Grey San Francisco as Executive Creative Director. Seese abdicated his title of Creative Director and Associate Partner at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco earlier this year. He told Creativity that:

"I've been freelancing for a while, in New York, some work with the Barbarian Group out here in San Francisco, and I kind of liked the idea of being the Lone Ranger. But what I missed was the opportunity to build a team, and the camaraderie that went with it. Jeff Goodby is a good friend, and he told me that I needed to start my own agency, and I got started on that through these side projects, but ultimately it's a really difficult thing to do. It's very difficult to find the right people you can trust with the right business acumen for the job."

Everyone bailing on Goodby. Feh Tarty and Pat McKay departed for W+K London recently. Mark Wenneker bailed for Mullen in March. Guy Seese said,

"I was really impressed with the people here at Grey SF. All the integrated pieces are already in place, we just need to throw some fuel on it and fire it up. Our goal here is to be nothing less than a creative powerhouse in the new media space."

Right. Um, was it the money, Guy? You've still got to partner with Betsy Sperry to lead the agency, so it had to be the cash. Sure, I get that. Cash talks. Possibly, Seese realized he was never going to shine beneath top dawgs, Goodby and Silverstein and left. Failed to get his own shop of the ground and then went straight for the cash.

Bravo to Grey for trying to revamp the deathstar. First, with Tor Myhren in New York and now this move. In his new role, Seese will lead Grey San Francisco's integrated creative department and oversee all the work -- from traditional advertising, to interactive, to web development. Prior to GSP, Seese spent five years as Executive Creative Director, Partner at Cole & Weber/United in Seattle working on Nike and Dell among others. Guy Seese is a Cannes, Clios, Kelly and One Show winner, too.

If you want to check out Seese's work, Grey has set up a website to cure your curiosity. Check it out here.

This investment is part of the initiative to spur G2's growth and make them a global powerhouse. Last year, G2 acquired Refinery and China's Star Echo. Joe Celia, Global Chairman and CEO, G2, said:

"Continued growth will remain a priority for us this year as our capabilities broaden in the critical APAC region and beyond."

Hunh. You guys might want to get better at this whole "acquiring thing" if you're going to keep doing it, yeah? G2's acquisition of Refinery was a disaster. There were high level resignations. Unhappy employees. Maybe they should set home base straight before tying on yet another shop. You know what... I'm going to let the employees (past and present) speak for themselves. Comments on Agency Spy regarding G2:

I Love It said:

"Hmmm, I find this commentary very funny, no strike that extremely funny. This mass exodus from G2 has been going on for over a year so it is nothing new and I am sure it will continue to happen. On my Aol IM I keep a count of former G2 employees and it now reads at 29 that have left. After reading these posts, apparently it needs to be updated. Sorry Sara. You are now officially added to the for G2 pile.

Yes, I was one of the 29 and counting former G2 staffers. Nope I am not biter or one of the ones that couldn’t hack it. I was one that was tired of the back stabbing and the poor senior management styles. I will not go into how bad Mallory is/was and how bad Jan is at managing people with her wonderfully absurd language. At one point I stared keeping a journal of all the interesting words she would use to describe people. (i.e. creatures) Oh I am enjoying. Seems like the chickens are coming home to roost.

Let’s say you can be a friend to G2 today and the favorite child and the bane of their existence tomorrow. One thing to think about is this, if the problems at G2 was because of the 29+ that were fired or resigned then shouldn’t it be better at this point. The only consistent factor seems to be Jan and Mallory. I wonder what G2 would look like if they were released of their duties years ago…..If there was a true alternate reality….."

Love It Or Hate It said:

"And I will reinforce, the people who work at G2/Grey Interactive are a talented, smart group of individuals that are and will lead successful careers in advertising. There is no lack of talent in regards to current and past employees (past includes those who have and have NOT left on their own terms) There is lack of leadership. What is missing is leadership that wants to get rid of the negative attitude that has poisoned the agency. When in fact,the current (and recently outed) leadership team puts their own personal agenda and insecurities in front of producing good work and keeping good people.

Sad as it is, members of the managment team did it to themselves and deserve to fail."

White Chocolate said:

"I worked at G2 few years ago. I remember having the most crazy fantastic moments with possibly the most insane group of people there. Everybody had fun except the few who didn’t fit in and ultimately chose to leave. I was 100% sure that there was no other agencies with culture and ambience that can match up to G2’s. It was unbelievably great. Now the new era has begun w/ new exec level. ppl of G2 and Grey all are mixed up and stuck between the chaotic internal politics in the upper level. It’s sad to see a corp.culture so hard to find evaporate. the old crew is leaving the place one by one, and i must say I can’t blame them."

E*Trade has a had rough time of it having reported huge losses related to investments in risky mortgages in November. With the addition of a new CEO, Donald Layton, stock prices rose slightly the other day. CNN Money reported that:

"So far, 2008 is shaping up as a much better year for Etrade (ETFC) and its investors than 2007 was. The company has resumed adding customers after 70,000 users - many of them among Etrade's most lucrative accounts - fled late last year amid bankruptcy rumors. Since then, the company has brought in a deep-pocketed outside investor, bid adieu to longtime CEO Mitch Caplan and rolled out a plan to slash expenses while boosting marketing spending."

Part of their resurgence could be attributed to the Super Bowl spots by Grey featuring the trading baby. You may not have liked them, but tt should be noted that the week after the Super Bowl (February 3rd, 3008), the company posted a “32% increase in newly opened and funded brokerage accounts the week following the Super Bowl" [source]. Hell, advertising is powerful.

However, did you see the print ads for E*Tradethat ran in the last New York Times Play magazine that claims the company has added a 1000 new accounts a day with this caveat in small print - "new accounts claim based on internal E*Trade financial metrics for average daily gross new accounts between 1/1/07 and 12/31/07?"

Fortune also provided us with a bit of a clearer picture:

"E*Trade also added 16,000 net new retail accounts in January. While those gains pushed the company’s end-of-period account rolls up 0.3 percent from a month ago, they show that E*Trade was adding just over 500 net accounts daily during the month - just half of the thousand daily account openings the company pointed to in its popular Super Bowl ads."

Truth in advertising, yup. Advertising is full of shaky data, yup. Apply it where you want. Slap it on and see if it sticks. We're sure that the company has some sort of metric for making it a full 1000 accounts a day, but here's a few questions we want to pose to you readers:

Do you think that Grey knew that the company was fudging the numbers with shaky accounting? We say no. However, is it an agencies responsibility to check they are "truthfully" advertising their clients? Does it matter more or less that this is a financial company?

Just something to chew on this afternoon...

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Tags: Reconstruction, social, TV spot, ad, advertising, video, grey worldwide, bruce hunt, transport accident commision, department of environment, mess, ad, TV spot, car, crash, advertising, video, ремень безопасности, видео, реклама, социалка, социальная реклама, авария, ДТП

Grey is so weird. We wish we could sneak behind their closed doors and spend a day sniffing around their office. Lord knows what we'd find. The video above was sent to us via a lovely tipster and features singing Executive Vice President, Chief Creative Officer Tor Myhren as he prepares to move his office to the 2nd floor.

Here's our favorite lines:

"Since I've been here I've been working on Tampon ads and Herpes ads if I choose."
"I could of moved us to 35, but some weird dude in G2 said no."

Also, "I went to Steve Hardwick and guess what he told me, guess what he told me... he said, girl, you better build a good department and you better make it quick. But, he's a dick."

Financial-services firm Fortis has placed its estimated $200 million global creative account with Group's Grey Worldwide. Our mouths almost hit the floor, too. Then we remembered what one very wise agency owner once told us - Grey is not about innovation or creativity. The agency is all about maintaining its clients presence in the public space; keeping the ship upright, not moving forward and they do a great job at it. Or, something like that anyway. It's true, too.

Fortis had 10 agencies bidding for the account with the final three being Grey, WPP sibling Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide and Publicis Groupe's Leo Burnett Worldwide.

Grey's chairman-CEO Jim Heekin, told AdAge that: "This win demonstrates that in a year of change and challenges, we are on the path to growth."  Sure.

Read More:  What's The Upside Of Working At Grey

MultiCultClassics points us to an ad for JWT. It's a diversity ad above. MCC seemed to be inspired. They've tinkered with the real ads of the big shops (or, correction, made their own) including Y&R, BBDO, DDB, Ogilvy and Mather and death star agency Grey to create some truly funny, as well as diverse new ones. Our favorite, for DRAFT/FCB is below. Go see the entire collection here.

JWT UK has slipped from second spot in the agency billings game for the first time. The UK agency, which lost both Vodafone and Reckitt Benckiser in the past 12 months, fell to third place in August after seeing its billings drop £64 million to £285 million since December 2006.

McCann Erickson UK is now number two having increased billings to £305 million -- a growth of 4.5 per cent since the end of last year. Ogilvy Advertising also fell from 8th to 10th, Leo Burnett from 10th to 12th, Saatchi & Saatchi from 11th to 14th and Grey from 13th to 15th.

Read More From Brand Republic Here

Working for Grey has its upsides? Sounds like it. Sources say that ex-employees of the death star agency often reunite. Think of it like an alumni mixer. In fact, there's one this Tuesday that mashes together a send-off of a female employee at Grey with the "what have you been up to" vibe of other get togethers. Also worth noting is that Grey often brings back folks they've fired or have quit. Odd, but true.

Grey has some wonderful people toiling away in the bowls of the ship. They actually, you know - like each other. Think of it this way - we're positive that the storm troopers got together and played a little cards, talked about families, sent cards around to sign when mum's were ill. It's just Darth Vader, General Tagge and all the other bigwigs that everyone hated.

The comment section on the recent articles about G2 and on other posts about Grey Worldwide got us thinking. If you take out all the crap about management, what you have is a bunch of people talking about how great everyone is that works there. Like this one:

GuerrilaGirl says: "Their is so much talent and amazing individuals here at G2i that it’s sad to see the way John Paulson has destroyed the moral… letting Mallory Anhouse conduct the dirty work…"

This may be true for lots of agencies, but the folks at Grey have made it a point to make sure we know that they stick together in the face of evil.

Read More: JWT Is Suffering

It looks like the run for the door at Grey's G2 unit is going to continue. Our sources tell us that there are two more resignations at G2 Interactive: the Lead Project Director and one of the top Account Supervisors on the Campbell's account. When it rains, it pours.

We'd like to share a comment from a reader on the original piece about the shop's troubles:

"Talent is there, but morale is down. The John Paulson comment is a low blow. Whoever sent that comment doesn’t know what they’re talking about and just aims at the head. G2 is a group of talented individuals who put their blood sweat and tears into the work for this agency - the real problem is:
1) Proper Compensation
2) Incentives
3) Departmental Ego’s"

Well, you can be assured that the first two issues are going to maintain, since HR has told employees that they can forget about raises. Departmental ego's...? Aren't most agencies suffering from that same exact problem?

Read More Here: What's The Upside For Working At Grey?

G2 Interactive, whose clients include Campbell's and Cover Girl and is also a subsidiary of Grey, recently bought Refinery - an independent digital shop. Our sources say that the road to full integration has naturally, been a little rough, causing chaos at their 5th avenue headquarters. There's been some high level resignations from all disciplines including Kathryn Lineberger and Graham Storey (both VPs of Creative) this week and VP of Technology, Brad Yuan, (who is now a Director of Development Outsourcing at MTV Networks) who quit in August.

HR has also made it clear they're not promoting any one nor are they increasing salaries on a yearly basis as of today. That seems reasonable considering that the shop is in total flux due to the acquisition. Our spies also say that President John Paulson is pretty much asleep at the wheel and that more resignations are on the way.

We're calling out to all G2 employees... how's it really going over there?

We contacted Jessica Owen Ward, Director of Communications at G2, for a response. She did not have information on Graham or Lineberger (so who knows what's going on there), but has this to say more generally:

Read More Here: Bigwigs at Ogilvy And Carat Duke It Out In Public

Meanwhile, Organic is trying to "bridge the gap between strategic consulting and agency services by telling clients how best to connect with consumers and organize their marketing in the digital age." READ MORE HERE

The incredible edible egg. That tagline really worked didn't it? Well, it's being freshened up with today's debut of an integrated advertising effort brought to you by Grey Worldwide. The new campaign is aimed at moms with spots appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America; in Better Homes and Gardens, Everyday with Rachael Ray; online via Yahoo.com, Foodtv.com and Weightwatchers.com and of course, there's going to be some radio and billboards, too.

We just love it when food producers get together to sell their products like the fab-o Milk campaign or the peanut ads blanketing the subways. What we'd love more is if Grey got um... you know... what's that word? Crap... Oh yeah! Creative!

"The centerpiece of the campaign is the visual image of individuals breaking out of an egg -- literally -- to demonstrate how eggs keep them going all day long," says Tim Mellors, vice chairman and global chief creative officer of Grey Worldwide.

Maybe Tim is thinking that the now required companion website is the really hot creative bit of this campaign? Designed by Chicago-based Envisionit Media, the site features recipes, nutritional information, interactive games for families (which we couldn't find) and a blog by Howard Helmer (who seems very sweet), the world's fastest omelet maker.

Oh! And no sight of any of the "creative centerpiece" imagery.  Way to integrate Grey.

Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO has won the £12m advertising business for Heinz after beating out Bartle Bogle Hegarty, Lowe and Grey. DDB London pulled out at an earlier stage. Anyone know why? [agencyspy at mediabistro dot com or IM us at agencyspy]

Incumbent McCann Erickson won the account in a previous pitch, but due to a conflict with their client Nestle, Heinz moved on.

UPDATE: JWT will be opening a London office out of which they will be running the account. From Brand Republic: "Deborah Huret, previously client service director on the Diamond Trading Company account, has been promoted to global business director, to run the business. Craig Davis and Guy Murphy will complete the core team on the Nokia account, with support from Keith Wilkins, Rob Alexander, Hilary Walton and core teams from each region."

The win will allow JWT to expand beyond its key markets in the UK and US to markets where the agency has never had a major presence before, such as Russia, Nigeria, China and India.

16:45 UPDATE: DDB has been apppointed by Nokia to handle the global strategic and creative briefs in Brazil.

Nokia has hired JWT for distribution and adaptation efforts. Meanwhile, Wieden + Kennedy is running big dawg as the world wide creative agency on its mobile phones account. JWT beat down DDB and the incumbent, Grey to take the approximately $15 million account. JWT is a little superstar today, no?

Nokia SVP Pekka Rantala (pictured above) said the usual blah, blah, blah copy: "Working together with JWT will help us to align our marketing efforts. With one global marketing network partner, we believe we will be better positioned to reach our goal of becoming the most loved and admired brand by people in the world."

We mentioned a bit ago that Sony was (rightfully) looking for a new agency. Despite the PS2 being the number one gaming console, the company needs to contend with the recent rise of Nintendo and Microsoft's gaming units, as well as what Adweek is nicely calling an "erosion" in core brand attributes. You know... after the blogosphere cried bloody murder over their recent PS2 India ads and the consumer backlash against the PS3, you gotta think this is a good move for Sony. The RFP reads:
"For the first time in its history, the company finds itself in a catch-up position with the next-generation consoles [e.g., Xbox 360 and Wii]," the document noted. "While the PS brand health is still strong and the PlayStation brand is still believed to deliver a 'stimulating experience' that 'pushes the boundaries,' it has become more of a safe choice. These indicators are pause for the company to reassess its strategic road map for managing its brand and products over the next ten years." Blah, blah, blah... you get the picture.

So who got this RFP? Publicis & Hal Riney in San Francisco and Publicis West in Seattle; Interpublic Group units DraftFCB in San Francisco and Deutsch/LA; WPP Group units Grey in San Francisco, Young & Rubicam, and JWT in San Francisco; and independents 72andSunny in El Segundo, Calif., and RPA. Looks like the incumbents TBWA/Chiat Day are going to pony up to the plate too, but you know Sony just asked them out of courtesy. We'll see what happens. The final decision can be expected in October.

More: Salaries At Publicis

Or, Ad Agency Anomaly Is Going To Be Rich Bitch

Steve Centrillo, (pictured here) former CEO of Foote, Cone & Belding (you know, the FCB in DraftFCB?) in New York, and ex-Grey executive creative director Dave Tutin have teamed up to launch CommonGround Partners, a strategic brand consultancy that will assist chief marketing officers with a focus on brand strategy and integration rather than creative execution.

From Adweek: "For years now the ad industry has wrestled with the issue of integration, while not admitting that it created this problem by disintegrating the ever-growing forms of advertising communications in the search for revenue streams," said Centrillo.

The goal is not to replace a client's agencies but rather "to provide them the springboard for creating great work for clients," said Tutin.

They seem like a good pair and they've known each other for some time having once both worked in darkgrey - that once cool unit of Grey Worldwide. Good luck to 'em both.

Hot on the heels of winning the Visa/Fifa account, W+K has gone and done it again. The shop has beat out JWT and the very fine independent agency Mother to be the global lead creative agency for the brand's core mobile phones business. Wieden + Kennedy replaces Grey Advertising (the poor ol' gal) in Europe and Bates in the Asia-Pacific region. The value of the account is estimated at 300 million dollars. Jo Harlow, Nokia's senior veep of marketing for mobile phones had this to say about W+K: “We expect this relationship to help take us to our goal of becoming the most loved and admired iconic brand.” Read More Here

Nokia has divided the review into two parts – creative and network distribution. The winner of Nokia’s network distribution business is expected to be announced shortly with JWT, Grey Worldwide, Nokia’s shop in Asia; and DDB Worldwide all vying for the top spot. Anyone want to get in on the pool for this one?

Over at Grey Worldwide they have this little thing called The Yerg Team. That's Grey backwards. How creative! How wacky! Anyway, the picture to the department's front door (see below) says it all if you ask us. See? There's the proof of how creative and really wacky they are. Here's what we know: there are about a dozen members on team Yerg - all web and animation specialists it seems. According to someone working inside Yerg named Ben Baruch one of the unit's projects includes an interactive portal called Globe Probe. It's supposedly going to be "an entertaining promotional website for Tanqueray" launching on July 16th. Globe Probe? Sorry, but isn't that the name of a tool a proctologist would use?

Anyway, a typical day at Yerg involves the regular "cool" ad agency activities like foosball, practicing skateboard moves and wasting time playing Gears Of War. However, we give a little love to Yerg for hosting private concerts in their space. Check out one of these exclusive jam sessions above featuring one of our favorite new musical acts The Bird And The Bee.

If you have any legitimate details you want to share about Yerg, send them our way at: AgencySpy AT mediabistro Dot com

How is it possible that the ol' Grey Lady's London branch has managed to land themselves the Toshiba account estimated at $50 million? It includes European, Middle-East and Africa accounts. Oh word? Adweek has got the full story, but here's the highlight:

"This is a historic step for Toshiba and not something we have done previously," said Stephen Beresford, senior manager of European marketing communications at Toshiba, in a statement. "We're confident that it will help to deliver greater impact for the brand and support the convergence that now exists between the computer and consumer electronics markets."

Considering the agency isn't known to be the best at "convergence," that's a lot for Grey to handle don't you think? Oh wait... We see. The London office won the account after a review that included Publicis Groupe's Saatchi & Saatchi and WPP's Young & Rubicam. Right. Not much competition there. Well bravo you old bag you!

Grey New York issued a press release today in which the opening statement was:

"Grey New York once again becomes the only advertising agency to participate in the Annual Broadway Flea Market to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS."

Good for Grey for doing a bit of charity work. It's the puffed out chest "once again" that has wondering who wrote this little missive. Grey New York is so interested in performing good works these days, like their recent call-out for agencies to go green. That's all well and good, but where's the new biz guys?

The agency also been on a hiring spree this month including Nick Childs as Director of Content Development; Tor Myhren as Chief Creative Officer and Michael Houston as Director of Marketing. This last position is a NEW one, which is hilarious to us. Grey NY is just now getting a marketing director? Ah... the death star is trying to rebuild itself. Good luck with that.