Grey Group celebrates centennial, launches startup initiative

An event in Singapore Friday (December 8) marked Grey Group's 100-year anniversary and introduced a startup initiative called Grey Adventures. 

The agency said it views itself as "a 100-year startup" that's determined to continue evolving and being innovative. To that end it has launched Grey Adventures, an initative to host technology startups within Grey's Singapore office space. The effort will give startups access to brands, Grey's brand-strategy expertise and opportunities to take part in live briefs, workshops and "hack days", while Grey gets access to the startups' know-how on products and services ranging from VR/AR to ecommerce payments, according to the company.

Either a company can say that it is a legacy at 100 years of age, or a startup at 100 years of age," Nirvik Singh, chairman and CEO of Grey Group Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, said in a speech at the event. "I think that if we want to be successful going forward then we have to behave like a startup that has turned 100. I believe that this is what will fuel our next wave of growth."

Other leaders in attendance included the newly appointed CEO of Grey Singapore, Konstantin Popovic; Subbaraju Alluri, area director for Indonesia and Thailand; Mans Tesch, chief strategy officer for AMEA; and Tim Cheng, Singapore chief creative officer. Representatives from clients P&G, GSK, Ferrero, Hotels.com and Sanofi were also on hand.

The startups in attendance were:

• Creitive
• Vostok VR
• PouchNation
• MediaPop
• Startup Big Boss
• Ideal Factory
• Innovator
• See Chat
• Infini Videos
• Startup Women
• Stylemyle
• Business IT
• Prefiniti (Jobber Deals)

The company has posted a video from the event: