17629: On Grey Matters.

Advertising Age reported on executive moves at Grey that were overshadowed by the resignation of  VML Global CEO-WPP Creative CEO Jon Cook, adding accelerant to the global flaming dumpster.

Back in 2020, Grey almost vanished via plans to fold the White advertising agency into AKQA—until staffers and clients protested. The merger reignited in 2024–2025 and dissolved in 2025 when Grey shifted under the Ogilvy Group banner.

Now it appears even Grey employees don’t wanna be associated with Grey, as the Global Chief Creative Officer bailed out to launch his own White advertising agency.

Meanwhile, other Grey executives were shuttled to different positions within the single White operating company.

Instead of asking, “Pardon me, would you have any Grey Poupon?” the question is, “Pardon me, would you have Grey pooped on?”

Grey’s global chief creative officer leaves to start his own agency

By Brian Bonilla

Multiple leadership changes are underway at Grey, according to an internal memo Laurent Ezekiel, global CEO of The Ogilvy Group, sent this morning, which Ad Age obtained.

Most notably, Gabriel Schmitt, Grey’s global chief creative officer, is leaving to launch his own agency, Ezekiel wrote in his memo. Schmitt’s departure from the WPP agency is effective Oct. 1.

“For a creative of Gab’s caliber, this marks a natural evolution in his leadership journey, which we are proud to champion,” Ezekiel wrote.

Schmitt wasn’t immediately available for comment. He joined Grey as global CCO in March 2023 after serving as co-chief creative officer of FCB New York. During his tenure, Grey produced work including Anheuser-Busch InBev’s “For Every Golden Moment,” which Ezekiel described in his memo as the brewer’s biggest-ever global campaign, as well as “SOS POS” for BCP Bank, which won a Creative Data Grand Prix at the 2026 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Two other Grey leaders are making moves within WPP. Global Chief Client Officer Jason Kahner and Global Chief Strategy and Data Officer Jonathan Lee will move into dedicated WPP global client and strategy leadership roles for Henkel and Kenvue/Kimberly-Clark, respectively, according to Ezekiel’s memo. Those transitions will take place over the next few months.

‘Grey remains Grey’

The moves represent another step in Grey’s integration with Ogilvy, which began in May 2025. The agencies have maintained their individual brands while increasingly operating as part of a broader Ogilvy Group.

Grey’s creative leadership will now report to Liz Taylor, Ogilvy’s global chief creative officer. This officially leaves Grey without a traditional global leadership team; its global CEO, Laura Maness, departed last year.

“Broadly speaking, reporting lines will remain as is—in most instances, routing directly through local office leadership and respective regional structures, and ultimately up through me,” Ezekiel wrote. “This gives teams the autonomy and ability to make decisions closer to client and other local considerations.”

The latest changes are intended to give Grey’s regional and local offices greater responsibility while connecting them more directly with Ogilvy’s broader capabilities, Ezekiel said. Grey’s local office leadership and regional structures will remain intact, according to the memo. Its teams will also continue to pitch for business and produce work under the Grey name, and its culture, social channels and email signatures will remain unchanged.

Grey teams will also have increased access to The Ogilvy Group’s capabilities across sports and entertainment, PR, health and innovation, as well as WPP’s technology offerings.

“Grey remains Grey,” Ezekiel wrote. “Day to day, Grey teams will continue to identify, pitch, win and create work as Grey.”

17628: On Powerade’s Performative Poppycock.

Advertising Age reported on Powerade—via Ogilvy, WPP Open X, and WPP Production—taking a performative stand against the Sydney Sweeney Novig campaign.

It’s dim-witted divertsity, divertorial, and divertisement drivel.

As previously noted, a naked Sweeney plays perfectly to the young male-dominated Novig audience.

On the flipside, who is Powerade appealing to? The social post depicted above addresses an exclusive bunch.

Most Powerade fans wouldn’t know Ogilvy, WPP Open X, or WPP Production. Hell, the majority of WPP drones display indifference to the segregated silos.

Powerade brags about its alleged legacy of supporting women’s sports. Okay, does The Coca-Cola Company award the average woman athlete the same $pokesperson contract as her male commercial counterpart? Don’t bet on it.

Powerade continues to run a distant second to Gatorade. And now the brand is striking out against Sweeney’s curves.

Powerade rebukes Novig’s nearly naked Sydney Sweeney ads

By Jon Springer

Powerade has delivered a response to Novig’s scantily clad Sydney Sweeney campaign: women’s sports have never been “just” sports. The Coca-Cola-owned sports drink brand is joining the backlash against the prediction market company’s controversial creative with its own digital outdoor ads that celebrate women athletes’ determination and resilience. Supported by content on Powerade’s social channels, the work turns Novig’s “Just Sports” slogan into a rebuke of the ads that have been criticized for sexualizing women in sports.

Ogilvy, part of WPP’s dedicated Coke agency, Open X, touted the campaign in a social media post today that emphasized Powerade’s history of supporting female athletes. The post depicts the response running in Times Square with an adjacent image of the Novig ad.

“When the conversation around how women are portrayed in sports started to pick up, we felt it was important for Powerade to share our perspective and reinforce what’s always been at the heart of our brand: athletes,” Leah Macko, Powerade’s VP of brand marketing, said in a statement.

“We’ve long believed that there’s no ‘just’ about what it takes to compete, especially for women in sports, so we saw this as an opportunity to celebrate the determination, resilience and impact female athletes bring to their sport,” she said.

Novig’s “Just Sports” campaign, which launched Sept. 9, features Sweeney appearing almost nude—with only strategically placed sports equipment covering her body—to promote its focus on the sports prediction market. The campaign spans digital advertising, social media, online video and out-of-home placements, including in Times Square, throughout football season.

Novig did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Powerade campaign.

After its debut last month, many female athletes swiftly denounced the ads for sexualizing women and undermining their achievements in sports.

But Novig has since doubled down, releasing a second Sweeney spot over the weekend called “No BS.” The company cited rising trading activity and a spike in app downloads as evidence that the campaign is working.

Sweeney is an equity investor in Novig and helped shape creative direction and strategy, including by suggesting that Novig center its message around its sports-only focus, according to Novig CEO Jacob Fortinsky. The “Just Sports” campaign was developed in-house, led by head of creative Alex Thompson, working with Sweeney.

“We have enormous respect for female athletes and the continued growth of women’s sports,” Fortinsky told Ad Age. “We’re focused exclusively on sports. Sydney’s not a female athlete and was not claiming to be one.”

Powerade’s investments in women’s sports include two NCAA March Madness campaigns with Flau’Jae Johnson, Paris Olympics work featuring Sha’Carri Richardson and Katie Grimes, and campaigns with Alex Morgan and Tatjana Smith. The brand said it will continue that support in 2027 through its partnerships with the U.S. Women’s National Team and the FIFA Women’s World Cup.

Contributing: Brian Bonilla

17627: On Charlie The Tuna & Dead Fish.

 

MediaPost recently reported StarKist named Tombras as its AOR, consolidating the business from multiple White advertising agencies to one. The StarKist VP of Marketing/Innovation gushed about bringing new energy to the brand and spotlighting iconic critter Charlie the Tuna.

The banner above appears to represent the new campaign. Sorry, Charlie—the work sucks and the responsible creative team should be canned like cheap tuna.

Starkist Consolidates Account, Selects Tombras As AOR

By Fern Siegel

Tombras has been named agency of record for StarKist.

The Knoxville, Tenn.-based agency will lead brand strategy, integrated creative development, media planning and buying, organic social and community management, measurement and analytics.

Previously, several agencies handled the brand. Now, it is combined into a single team.

“StarKist has tremendous brand equity, and this partnership gives us an opportunity to build on that strength with a fresh, integrated approach. Together with Tombras, we are bringing new energy to the brand, putting Charlie the Tuna back in the spotlight and creating work designed to drive relevance and long-term growth,” Michael Merritt, Jr., vice president, marketing/innovation at StarKist, told Agency Daily.

First campaign work begins this fall and will feature the brand's long-term mascot. Media spending for 2025 was estimated at $7 million, according to COMvergence.

“Partnering with StarKist is exciting for me personally on multiple levels. It's special to work on a truly iconic brand with so much equity. StarKist is a brand I grew up with. Now, we have the opportunity to introduce the brand to a new generation of consumers,” added Dooley Tombras, president at Tombras.

Tombras’ creative work also includes E.L.F., Rubbermaid, Rippling and Arby’s.

StarKist Co. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dongwon Industries Co., Ltd.

17626: On The New Age Of Abuelas.

 

Advertising Age published a Hispanic Heritage Month perspective on giving a multicultural marketing makeover to abuelas.

The new abuelas—it’s time for Hispanic marketing to retire an outdated archetype

By Jorge Becerra

Few characters are as familiar in Hispanic advertising as the abuela. For decades, she has been one of the most heavily used creative shortcuts for signaling family, tradition and cultural authenticity.

But while longevity has changed what later life looks like, advertising’s version of the abuela has barely changed at all. In fact, the abuela that advertising keeps putting on screen increasingly bears little resemblance to today’s abuelas.

Recently, I started reading Andrew Scott’s The Longevity Imperative, and it got me thinking about how our idea of later life is changing dramatically, and how slowly advertising has changed with it. People are living longer, but culturally we still compress older people into a remarkably narrow set of roles.

For Latina women, that disconnect is especially striking.

According to the CDC, a Hispanic woman who reaches 65 can expect, on average, another 23 years of life. In other words, 65 is not the beginning of the epilogue. It can be the beginning of another two-decade chapter.

And those years are not necessarily being spent withdrawing from the world. According to AARP research, 62% of Hispanic adults 50-plus say they maintain a healthy, active lifestyle. And 34% are focused on learning new skills.

We are comfortable showing abuela teaching. Why not show her learning?

Working life also deserves a place in the frame. Hispanic adults have higher labor force participation than white and Black adults across the 55-plus, 65-plus and 75-plus age groups. Working longer is not necessarily a choice, but it certainly challenges the image of later life as a permanent retreat from the world.

And yes, there is also life beyond giving romantic advice to grandchildren. Among Americans 65-80, 40% report being sexually active, and nearly three-quarters of those say they are very satisfied with their sex lives. Research also suggests older Hispanic adults are having even more sex than non-Hispanic white people the same age.

That probably isn’t the abuela most advertising has been showing us.

This is a new generation of abuelas: women who are living longer, working longer, traveling, exercising, dating, creating, spending, caring for multiple generations and continuing to reinvent themselves well into what we once considered “old age.”

Yet our cultural image of them hasn’t caught up.

In AARP research, 76% of Hispanics 50-plus said older people are underrepresented in advertising, and 84% said they would be more likely to buy from a brand featuring people their age. Perhaps even more revealing, 60% said they try to keep up with trends, compared with just 24% of the general 50-plus population surveyed.

That is a very different consumer from the one much of Hispanic advertising keeps casting.

For U.S. marketers, this represents more than an opportunity for better representation. It is a challenge to rethink one of Hispanic marketing’s most persistent cultural archetypes.

The abuela can still represent family, wisdom and tradition. But she can also represent ambition, independence, vitality and possibility.

The opportunity is to give abuelas the same dimensionality we increasingly demand for every other audience.

Marcelo Arango, founder and CEO of Young Aurelius, a strategic consultancy focused on helping companies navigate demographic change, foster intergenerational collaboration and better understand older generations, believes the shift requires marketers to rethink the assumptions they have long made about aging.

“We are long overdue for a new playbook. Longevity didn’t just add years to the end of life. It created an entirely new stage of adulthood. The demographics have changed, but we are still marketing to a world that no longer exists,” said Arango.

For our industry, that should force a creative reset.

Abuela has long been one of Hispanic marketing’s most efficient cultural shortcuts. Put her in an ad, and within seconds we communicate heritage, family, care and authenticity.

But shortcuts become stereotypes when we stop updating them.

In recent years, we have become much better at questioning one-dimensional representations of Latinas, or younger generations. Yet somehow, abuela remains stuck in an outdated script.

The next generation of abuelas can still embody wisdom, tradition and connection. Those qualities have not disappeared. What has expanded is everything around them: their economic lives, ambitions, relationships, identities and sense of what is still possible.

Perhaps the most respectful thing Hispanic marketing can do is stop treating older Latinas primarily as custodians of the past.

They are also participants in the present and, most importantly, authors of the future.

17625: On Cookie-Cutter Corporate Construction.

 

Advertising Age reported McCann CEO Tyler Turnbull will take the WPP Creative Global CEO title from departing VML Global CEO-WPP Creative Global CEO Jon Cook.

So much for a thoughtful transition. Then again, given the speed at which WPP CEO Cindy Rose replaced former WPP CEO Mark Read, hyper-accelerated musical chairs appear to be standard operating procedure for the single White operating company.

This also calls into question the transparency Rose once claimed to foster. How long was Turnbull courted behind the scenes? Surely the offer wasn’t hatched last week after Cook announced his resignation.

Turnbull is abandoning Omnicom, triggering suspicion of poaching and/or restructuring resentment. Regardless of the motivations, he’s hopping from the proverbial frying pan into the global flaming dumpster.

In closing, it’s worth noting Cook—a performative proponent for DEIBA+ and certified defender of Divertsity—ultimately replaced himself with two White men.

McCann CEO Tyler Turnbull set to take over as WPP Creative global CEO

By Brian Bonilla and Ewan Larkin

WPP is set to appoint Tyler Turnbull, the global CEO of McCann, as global CEO of WPP Creative, according to people familiar with the matter. Turnbull would succeed Jon Cook, who is due to step down by March.

It wasn’t immediately clear if Turnbull’s remit would extend beyond WPP Creative. Turnbull interviewed for the Ogilvy global CEO role before Laurent Ezekiel’s appointment in late 2025, according to people close to the situation.

WPP, Omnicom, McCann and Turnbull did not immediately return requests for comment.

Turnbull became McCann’s global CEO last December, following Omnicom’s acquisition of Interpublic Group of Cos., and now leads one of Omnicom Advertising’s three creative networks alongside BBDO and TBWA.

Before McCann, Turnbull rose through the ranks at IPG’s FCB. He joined in 2014 to revive the struggling Canadian office, later led New York, became North America CEO in 2019 and ascended to global CEO in 2022. FCB has since been folded into BBDO following the Omnicom deal.

Contributing: Judann Pollack

17624: Cooking A Heaping Helping Of Lame Duck.

More About Advertising presented yet another take on the impending exit of VML Global CEO-WPP Creative CEO Jon Cook, even comparing the move to Omnicom Advertising Group CEO Troy Ruhanen relinquishing his position.

Okay, except Ruhanen is an established, respected, and decorated leader succeeded by an established, respected, and decorated leader. Cook and his crony, not so much.

Cook remarked, “I look forward to working closely with Cindy (Rose, CEO) and the WPP and VML leadership teams over the coming months to execute a thoughtful transition.”

Huh? Cook isn’t scheduled to leave the building until March 2027—nearly six months away. Cook’s thoughtful transition will take roughly twice as long as his hasty decision to skedaddle.

Then again, former WPP CEO Mark Read made a similar statement about thoughtfully transitioning before being rapidly replaced by Cindy Rose.

Cook is essentially a lame duck—maybe he should duck out pronto.

VML’s Cook quits as WPP Creative boss

By Stephen Foster

When any industry goes through a process of upheaval – especially when it involves heavy redundancies – it’s right to focus on the troops as they bear the cost, often losing their jobs.

But being one of the managers charged with overseeing such upheavals can’t be much fun unless terminating people rocks your boat.

It’s interesting that VML’s Jon Cook is following hard on the heels of Omnicom Advertising Group’s Troy Ruhanen in stepping down from one of the key jobs as the industry is changing: Ruhanen, who’s being replaced by BBDO’s Andrew Robertson, masterminded (if that’s the right word) the merger of FCB into BBDO and demise of DDB as Omnicom bought IPG; Cook had the even bigger job of merging his VML with WPP’s JWT, Wunderman and Y&R to create what was the world’s biggest creative agency. At the time few people on this side of the Atlantic knew what VML was. To say that executives at the other agencies were surprised is a huge understatement.

Yet Cook, who’s being succeeded by another lifer at the one-time Kansas City digital agency, Eric Campbell, is reckoned to have done a pretty good job, eventually overseeing Ogilvy, Grey, Burson, AKQA, Landor and Design Bridge & Partners as head of the recently-minted WPP Creative. We wait to see if this really will become one company (which would be one way to get rid of even more people.)

Cook says: “This has been one of the hardest decisions I have ever made in my life. But after three decades of pouring everything I have into this agency and all of WPP, it is time to build something new. VML and WPP Creative are operating from positions of tremendous strength and this is the right moment for other voices to lead. I am immensely proud of our teams, the iconic work we produce with our clients and the one-of-a-kind culture we have built. I look forward to working closely with Cindy (Rose, CEO) and the WPP and VML leadership teams over the coming months to execute a thoughtful transition.”

The job facing the head of any creative agency these days is finding enough work at the right price to keep everyone gainfully employed. This is particularly tough for many ad folk who, incorrigible optimists that they are, think mainly of growth and, gleefully, of poaching talent from their rivals as they grow.

17623: Cooking With The Same Old Recipe, Serving Up The Status Quo.

Adweek published a different spin on the impending exit of VML Global CEO-WPP Creative CEO Jon Cook, stressing how he’s handing the baton to one of his “best friends in life.”

Soon-to-be successor Eric Campbell is a VML veteran currently serving as WPP Creative North America CEO, a title he’ll retain upon gaining the VML Global CEO role.

According to Adweek, “Knowing VML and WPP Creative will be in the hands of someone who has helped [Cook] build the business has made it easier to step away.”

Easier for who? And easier how?

Cook admitted in Advertising Age that he only started considering career options last summer—mere months ago. So, it was a relatively quick decision. Ditto the appointment of his replacement.

Through messy mergers and radical restructuring, WPP likely has a surfeit of qualified and available C-suite executives. Identifying the next leader for the largest White advertising agency and entire creative practice (although Campbell is not assuming full WPP Creative CEO duties) in the global flaming dumpster should have warranted an extensive, exhaustive search.

Under Cook, VML once boasted extreme dedication to DEIBA+ and Divertsity too.

Recent PR also positioned Cook as caring, concerned, and committed to people.

What’s more, WPP leadership expressed awareness of constant churn adversely affecting morale, trust, and psychological safety.

Yet when presented with an opportunity to fill one of the biggest positions in Adland—a choice that impacts WPP employees worldwide—Cook instantly opted for cronyism and selected a White man.

Jon Cook on 30 Years at VML and Handing the Agency Over to His Best Friend

The WPP exec said he’s ready to climb a new career mountain.

By Christopher Cicchiello

Jon Cook’s 25 years at VML was full of changes, from the early startup days to mergers and acquisitions to rebrands and integrations. Alongside him the entire time was Eric Campbell, who he described as not just a partner in his career, but one of his “best friends in life.”

Now, after announcing his departure from the agency on Friday, Cook has the rare fortune of handing the reins to his long-time friend, who succeeds him as global CEO of VML while retaining his dual role as North America CEO of WPP Creative. 

Knowing VML and WPP Creative will be in the hands of someone who has helped him build the business has made it easier to step away, Cook said.

(Read the full story here.)