That sentiment was echoed by Jim Stengel, a former executive at Procter & Gamble, which signed with the agency in 1956 and remains a Grey client today. Meyer “bled P&G blue,” said Stengel, a former P&G global marketing officer and now independent consultant. “I remember as a young brand manager how he attended every annual budget meeting of every P&G brand Grey handled—and there were a lot.”
“Ed Meyer was a hugely important figure who not only transformed Grey into a global powerhouse but helped to shape the modern advertising industry as we know it. He built Grey from an advertising agency into a major international communications group with a strong and independent spirit,” said WPP CEO Mark Read. “Under his leadership, Grey created iconic campaigns for many of the world’s leading brands and of course the relationship with P&G—nurtured by Ed over decades—remains strong today. Grey was Ed’s lifetime work and we are proud to see his legacy continue to this day.”
Meyer’s history with P&G, in fact, predates Grey. Meyer began his career at the now-defunct Biow Agency working on the marketer’s Lava soap business. Meyer began his career with the idea of becoming a creative—from college until he was named Grey CEO, he penned one-act plays at night.
“I’ve got the first act of a dozen comedies sitting in my drawer,” Meyer said in the history of Grey provided to Ad Age. But he moved to the account side, Meyer told Chief Executive, because while working at Biow, “I hated the account guy for his verbal ignorance and that he earned more than I did.”
Once a creative
Born in Manhattan in 1927, Meyer was raised on the Upper West Side, directly across from Central Park, and attended Horace Mann, a prep school in the Bronx. He served in the US Coast Guard following graduation near the end of World War II and signed on as an economics major at Cornell. His first position was as an executive trainee at Bloomingdale’s.
Beyond global expansion, perhaps one of his biggest achievements was diversifying the agency into multiple disciplines including health care, shopper marketing, PR and media with the formation of Mediacom. “He built very strong, account-driven, client relationships such as at P&G and at the same time an integrated approach covering media, direct, promotion, public relations, healthcare, as well as strategy and creative,” said Martin Sorrell, who was CEO of WPP when it acquired Grey and who is now founder and executive chairman of S4 Capital.
from Digital Marketing Education https://ift.tt/uFZkANp
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