Havas’ Annex88 hires Grey exec as chief creative officer

Havas New York has appointed Andre Gray chief creative officer of Annex88. Gray was an executive creative director at Grey New York for nearly two years and previously worked at Eleven and TBWA\Neboko, where he was the global creative director for Gatorade and Adidas.

During his time at the WPP agency, Gray helped secure account wins for brands such as Las Vegas Tourism and Intercontinental Hotel Group. He also worked on accounts such as McCormick & Co. and Procter & Gamble, including the brand’s “Widen the Screen” campaign last year.

Gray takes over from Annex88 Executive Creative Director Florent Imbert, who left the agency earlier this year. Prior to Florent, Harry Bernstein, who founded the agency, served as chief creative officer before departing in October 2020. Gray will lead the agency alongside Annex88’s Executive Managing Director Elena Grasmann, who took on the role in June. She previously served as a managing director for Havas New York for nearly five years. Havas New York Chief Creative Officer Dan Lucey said it was important to hire a dedicated chief creative officer for the agency again.

Outdated term

“The way the structure used to work is there was an executive creative director who would run the day-to-day,” Lucey said. “We elevated the role to chief creative officer with Andre because, to be honest, I always thought it was strange. I think Andre needs to run the day-to-day. He needs to run this agency with Elena and with the rest of the people who work there and they need to be in it. We move super fast as an industry these days. I'm not expecting him to come check in with me for every decision he makes.  I'm here to help him out. We will meet once a week. He will report to me, but it's not in the way of like ‘Hey I need permission to do this.’”

The agency currently has 25 employees and 10 clients including Adidas, Hugo Boss, and Courvoisier. Even though Annex88 was originally founded as a digital agency under the name 88 before being acquired by Havas in 2017, Gray says the term is outdated now.

“Annex historically and moving forward will still do the same thing—we chase the conversation," Gray said. “In its inception, it was called digital and really that was a misnomer because it's kind of social [media], but that was when no one knew what it was. Now it's so much table stakes that I think that type of qualification actually is diminutive of the impact of what you can have. We're chasing the culture and the conversation, the communities and where people are. And I think that's where the biggest distinction is. We still want that media budget. We want the media to follow and fuel where the conversation is versus the media being the metric of success that dictates where the work goes.”

“The media landscape has evolved, so has  [Annex88's] capabilities, so I wouldn't call them a digital agency anymore,” Lucey said.

Shifts at Grey

The news comes as Grey experiences several big executive moves. Just last week it was reported that Grey New York’s Chief Creative Officer Justine Armour and John Patroulis, Grey’s global creative chairman and president, creative business, were leaving the agency due to personal reasons. In June, Grey’s Global CEO Michael Houston was named the first U.S. president of WPP. 

Outside of his agency work, Gray was part of the Black Madison Ave. documentary that came out earlier this year. It featured seven Black executive creative directors dissecting the lack of diverse representation in creative executive roles in the ad industry. In March, when describing the film, Walt Geer III, VMLY&R’s chief experience design officer, said in a statement that there seemed to be only nine black executive creative directors at the top holding companies in the U.S.

“It's very rare air,” Gray said, regarding being a Black chief creative officer. “I'm respectful and appreciative of that. It's not enough. We have the weight on our shoulders to prove how great we can be. So I'm excited to get going and I'm excited for not only the talent, but the clients that are thirsty for something a bit different.”