Famously Effective
I work for an advertising agency that is in the process of moving into a new office space, which we will share with one of our sister agencies. We are both owned by the same parent company, WPP.
While waiting in the lobby to have my new employee ID photograph taken, I noticed a nicely-produced book on the reception desk. So I gave it a quick page-through before it was my turn in front of the camera.
The orange-colored, textured-fabric cover caught my eye first. It had low-contrast, pressed-in lettering that required a longer-than-normal look to make out the title:
FAMO
USLY
EFFECTIVE
SINCE
1917
Inside the cover, the purpose of the book revealed itself more clearly - 100 Years of Grey.
It is a celebration and documentation of Grey Advertising’s centennial in 2017.
Anyway, it pulled me right in and I forgot I was waiting to get my picture taken.
The hundred-years-of-Grey story opens with a young man named Larry Valenstein starting-up a design studio just a short way up Fifth Avenue from where today’s worldwide HQ stands.
With only a $100 loan from his mother and a high-school education, he was starting up a trajectory that would have been impossible to predict.
The story advances one stage at a time. From design studio to advertising agency. Joining the 4As. Surpassing $1M in billings. Landing GSK as a client. Opening a first international office in Montreal. Defining the television era of advertising with JIF and Kool-Aid. Coining the term "psychographics". Running landmark studies like "How Advertising Works". Going public. Getting acquired by WPP.
And so on.
The book also explains the backstory of Grey's mantra "Famously Effective". This expression ties to Grey's twin ambitions to drive their clients’ business and reputation.
The agency’s success has been extraordinary on these, which they credit to work that prioritizes culturally ambitious ideas that can be effective regardless of which medium they appear in.
A long list of names across the final pages of the book recognizes the Grey-sters of today who plan, create, produce and measure the campaigns day-in and day-out.
The book is a beautiful object - produced by Grey's own production unit Townhouse, winner of a Graphis award for print book design. And a testament to one of the great agencies of the past and future.
