5 Minutes with… Jonny Tennant-Price

Jonny Tennant-Price has been the managing director of Grey London for five years, joining the agency from BBH and Droga5 London.

Last year, Grey London wanted to achieve something huge: a 100% pitch win rate which, Jonny proudly reports, the agency succeeded in. The process was about getting the agency into a pitch-ready state throughout the year and focusing on client experience over what Jonny calls a “Don Draper-style ‘eureka’ moment.”

Jonny notes the agency’s ongoing commitment to its guiding principle, delivering ‘Famously Effective’ ideas, saying that clients today need ideas with influence that can problem-solve in “meaningful, distinctive and salient ways.”

LBB caught up with Jonny to learn about the best career lessons he’s learnt, more about the agency’s ambition over the next 12 months, and why Grey London is adapting to the fact that it’s “really in the business of creativity rather than advertising.”

LBB> Grey London’s pitch win rate for 2024 was incredibly high. What strategies or cultural shifts do you attribute to this success, and how do you plan to sustain this momentum?

Jonny> At the beginning of 2024 we set out with a clear objective: to end the year with a 100% pitch win ratio. We knew the most important priority was to ensure that the agency was ‘pitch fit’. We needed to be able to repeatedly cope with the demands of high-velocity new business activity alongside our existing client commitments.

Part of this is about recognising that pitching has become a normal part of daily life within creative agencies. As such, we run them like a sprint rather than a marathon. We try to ensure there is capacity and space inside the regular workflow to allow for this approach to work, and use a tried and tested formula to expedite the process as much as possible. Whilst pressure will always be part of pitching – we do our best to make it as enjoyable as possible.

However, most importantly, it requires a shift in mindset around what is actually required of an agency at pitch. We place a particular focus on client experience over a Don Draper-style ‘eureka’ moment. We want to give clients a flavour of what it’s like to work with us, how our minds work, how we operate as a team (and with them) – most importantly, for them to see what we’re capable of. More ‘product demo’ than final product. That said, we do normally have a good go at cracking it first time and surprise them too.

LBB> As MD, you oversee the agency’s creative product, culture, operations, and growth. What’s the relationship between all these for you, and how much balance does there need to be between the different areas, if any?

Jonny> I see them, rather simplistically, as an interconnected virtuous circle. In terms of balance, there is a disproportionate emphasis on the creative product – placing it at the centre of everything we do, around which growth, culture and operations must rotate.

Ultimately, this rotation must begin with growth both creatively and commercially. It’s about the agency culture, operational framework and talent being geared around identifying, developing and nurturing the juiciest creative problems for us to solve – be that with existing or new clients. Converting this opportunity from potential to a product in the real world requires a relentless dedication to the sometimes ethereal magic of creative and strategic excellence.

We achieve this by empowering, enabling and encouraging the brilliant minds we have in our studio to shine (unencumbered by process) and to think freely whilst helping them by plugging skills/specialisms or partnering with others to remove any other potential roadblocks along the way. Most importantly, it relies on a deep cultivation of client relationships whilst maintaining a healthy degree of outsider perspective. This is about creating a culture built around serving our clients with what is right instead of simply servicing them. Get this right, then a decent opportunity leads to a decent product, which leads to a happy client, leading to more opportunity.

LBB> You’ve emphasised the importance of creating ‘Famously Effective’ ideas. How does Grey London balance creative innovation with delivering measurable results for clients?

Jonny> ‘Famously Effective’ articulates our unwavering commitment to helping our
clients build the most influential brands of the next decade. This isn’t just a tagline; it’s the driving force behind everything we do.

It starts with deeply understanding the factors their brand needs to influence to drive positive change for their business. This could be influencing consumer perceptions, buying behaviour, culture or more – but always with the aim of solving business problems in meaningful, distinctive and salient ways.

Our ideas also must have the ability to earn attention – because we believe that true attention can no longer be bought, it must be earned first. This is about mechanising fame – ensuring that our influential work doesn’t just create cultural relevance but instead drives culture forward in innovative new ways.

This requires us to think, behave and create in a way that places influence at the heart of every idea – across a full spectrum of brand experience, while simultaneously putting effectiveness and impact at the heart of every famously effective idea from brief to impact.

LBB> What is Grey London really good at right now – what is it leading on? On the other hand, what changes or adjustments are you looking to make?

Jonny> Bragging isn’t normally my style – but I think one thing we have been putting
a great deal of thought into is creating a deeper understanding of what clients need from a creative agency. From there, we are able to configure and tailor the specific role Grey London can play within their worlds.

We believe clients ultimately want the agility, pace and creative flair of an independent, but with a network's tech stack, data tools, insight and scale. This is something we’ve learned from our own personal experience by spending the majority of our careers in independent agencies, but now at the wheel of a network brand. We therefore consider ourselves uniquely placed to straddle the goldilocks zone that many agencies claim to occupy but few do so authentically…to inhabit both identities at once and without ever falling too hard on either side. Developing, optimising and delivering against this promise is, of course, an ongoing process as we navigate the high creative standards, aggressive growth targets, portfolio management and infrastructure integration that comes with the territory.

LBB> We have to ask about AI. How is Grey London exploring and leveraging this technology, internally and for clients?

Jonny> We’re fortunate enough to have access to WPP Open – a full-service proprietary AI platform for us to use on behalf of our clients and for various internal tasks. This has been hugely helpful in standardising which AI tools everyone was using and brought teams within Grey London together into one place. Our overall approach to AI is no different to our approach towards everything else we do at Grey London…we are focused on delivering the best possible creative product for our clients by whatever means necessary.

Again, we’re grateful to benefit from a huge investment from WPP, but are still given the freedom of an independent to pick and choose how or if we use it. Sometimes its involvement isn’t necessary. Sometimes it’s essential. Having a tool that can do everything doesn’t always mean you should use it for everything. But more often than not, it now plays a role.

LBB> Reflecting on your transition from Droga5 to Grey London, what lessons from your previous roles have been most influential in shaping your leadership approach at Grey?

Jonny> I was blessed to spend most of my career working with the same core group
of people initially at BBH London and then at Droga5 as we collectively set about the turnaround of the London office. When I reflect on the talent I was amongst at both agencies, I feel absurdly lucky to have worked with and learnt from all of them.

The lasting impression I took from my time spent in these two incredible agencies is perhaps best summarised by a simple but hugely valuable piece of advice David Kolbusz gave me just before I joined Grey, “If you focus on the work, then everything else will follow.” I had no idea at the time just how useful that would become when navigating the labyrinthian mesh of competing complex choices and decisions I’m now faced with on a daily basis. This principle continues to be the guiding or deciding factor in everything I do. He also told me “never eat in front of clients unless they’re eating too,” also very valuable. The other was the BBH mantra of ‘be good and be nice'. Our industry is and always will be centred on people (one way or the other) so focusing on being good at what you do without being an arsehole to everyone is also massively important.

On a more practical basis I think the two agencies also taught me that making brilliant creative output can either be done quick and scrappy or be monstrously rigorous and process-led – it doesn’t really matter as long as you’re motivated by the right things, are prepared to get in there, graft, have your say and ultimately make whatever it is you’re doing the very best that it can be.

LBB> Grey has spoken about building a ‘modern creative company’. What does that look like to you in practice and beyond the buzzwords?

Jonny> Traditional ‘ad agencies’ face an incredibly bleak future if they fail to adapt to the fact that they are really in the business of creativity rather than advertising. The latter is an increasingly narrow field facing myriad existential challenges – the former is an area filled with excitement, possibility and growth.

Whether we like it or not, the agency landscape in 2025 is tough to succeed in. Pressure on clients and their budgets from both global macroeconomic forces and internal short-term ROI accountability, obscenely stiff competition in an overserviced and often undifferentiated marketplace, being squeezed by massive global consultancies, entertainment studios and start-ups – all of this is unlikely to change and is frankly beyond our control.

Evolving Grey London into a modern creative company is about addressing these challenges head-on by placing creative thinking at the heart of everything we do, rather than just advertising. In practice, this is about applying creative thought further upstream in our clients’ business – tackling business transformation briefs and solving long-term business problems over downstream marcoms activity. It’s about hiring and empowering creative polymaths in all aspects and at all levels of our business, rather than just in the creative department. It’s about being selective about who we work with rather than running at every new opportunity blindfolded. Most importantly, it’s about embracing creativity for creativity's sake – not just to get paid for it.

LBB> Looking ahead, what are your aspirations for Grey London over the next 12 months?

Jonny> Within about five minutes of meeting Helen Rhodes for the first time, it was self evident that she would be the person to join our crew and signal the start of a tremendous and memorable new chapter in the history of Grey London. When she joins us as CCO soon, she will be entering into a studio with an unwavering commitment towards being one of the best creative agencies in London. The next 12 months will be about making good on that promise. It’s about bringing Helen into our team and onto our journey together – with love, warmth and shit loads of ambition.