London Special: Alex Grieve & Adrian Rossi

The teaming up of Alex Grieve and Adrian Rossi, co-ECDs at AMV BBDO, was a rather unusual, arbitrary pairing involving random CV selection, a reluctant pub date and some ‘quite bad’ short stories. The oddness of their union has, they say, enabled them to create odd work – Barnardo’s Heroin Baby and Audi Fish – that’s got noticed. Selena Schleh meets a successfully odd couple

Creative partnerships, they say, are like marriages, so it’s no surprise that when AMV BBDO’s ECD, Alex Grieve, got hitched, his wedding speech paid tribute to his first ‘marriage’… to co-ECD Adrian Rossi. But while few romantic unions make it to a silver anniversary, 2017 will mark 25 years since the pair first teamed up professionally.

Four agency moves, a brace of promotions and three gold Lions later, what’s the secret to their lasting partnership? “You have some teams who are literally best mates,” says Grieve, “but our relationship is different. I’m not sure we’re best friends – we’re very different kinds of people – it’s deeper than that. It’s almost like brothers working together.” 

Meeting them in person, the sibling metaphor seems apt: the elder brother role falls to Grieve, whose mild manner and dry asides are the perfect foil to Rossi’s bubbling enthusiasm and boundless energy.

Distinct in character, their backgrounds are very different too. Both are London born and bred, but while Rossi always harboured ambitions to work in advertising and studied at the School of Communication Arts, Grieve grew up with a rather more cynical view of the business.

His father, a film and TV director best known for swashbuckling British drama series Hornblower, also worked in advertising and demonstrated a high regard for his commercials awards by displaying them in the downstairs loo. On graduating with a degree in English and politics, Grieve famously assured his dad that whatever career he chose, “it wouldn’t be advertising”.

It was then, perhaps, inevitable that after a stint as a TV researcher and writing “quite bad short stories” in his spare time, Grieve reluctantly met with an advertising head-hunter looking to pair up creatives. “She literally picked the first CV off a stack – which happened to be Adrian’s – and said, ‘Go and meet this guy in the pub and see if it works out – you never know,’” remembers Grieve. “It was a very interesting start,” continues Rossi. “Alex brought along his short stories, which were quite left-field and I could see he had a real craft and appreciation for words, so I thought it was definitely worth a go. Plus, he was pretty upfront about having nothing else to do…”

Small hobos, large talent

Despite this unusual beginning, it proved a match made in heaven. After six months working at the Grieves’ kitchen table they won their first placement, at what was then the most famous ad agency in London, Saatchi & Saatchi. “It was an incredibly creative place,” says Rossi. “Great craftsmen, great ideas people.” By moving desks and squatting in store cupboards (“We were like the Littlest Hobos, trying to find somewhere to live,”) they managed to eke out tenure for a year, absorbing knowledge and honing their skills, and eventually producing some “small but interesting” ads. “Because we’d got together in an unusual way, the work we did was quite odd, so it stood out,” explains Grieve.

As the duo’s upward trajectory continued, it wasn’t long before the agency du jour, BBH, approached them – but out of nerves at the prospect of trading a “gargantuan cruise liner of an agency” for an intimate shop, they refused. “Everyone said, well, that’s it – BBH only come knocking once,” says Rossi. So it was a surprise that less than a year later, the offer was repeated. This time, the answer was a resounding yes.

That ‘yes’ marked the beginning of a successful 14-year stint, during which the duo “worked on every account going” and helped set up the agency’s New York office to boot.

While drawing inspiration from the lofty likes of John Hegarty and Nigel Bogle (“both incredible in very different ways”), someone who had a more direct influence on their development was then-ECD John O’Keeffe: “He really steered us and we learned a lot from him,” says Rossi. Among their many successes at BBH – Audi Fish; Lynx Billions and St John Ambulance Lost Lives – the highlight was the hugely controversial Heroin Baby for the children’s charity Barnardo’s, depicting a syringe-wielding baby preparing to shoot-up in squalid surroundings. The resulting media furore was their first experience of the “fame and talkability” that great advertising can generate – something that has shaped their philosophy.

“We’ve never set out [to win] awards, although they’re a nice by-product,” says Grieve. “We’re far more interested in work that reaches popular culture and that people can react to and think about.” “Fame and talkability are something we always strive for,” adds Rossi.

Digital will eat you up

By 2010, however, things were starting to get a little too comfortable, so they started looking at offers from AMV BBDO and digital agency Glue. Keen to do something “that completely took us out of our comfort zone”, they chose the latter. This slightly odd career interlude – “We didn’t really produce any work,” – was nonetheless valuable in rewiring their creative approach and demystifying the world of digital.

“There was a real fear in creatives of our generation about the death of traditional advertising; that the roles of craft and art direction were null and void and the digital era was going to eat everyone up,” explains Grieve. “At Glue we understood very quickly that [digital] was still about the primacy of the idea, it’s just a different place to put it.”

Ten months later – in a strange case of history repeating itself – AMV’s CCO Paul Brazier called again. This time, Grieve and Rossi were hungry for the creative opportunities a traditional agency could offer: “It was basically, give us some fucking briefs and give them to us now! Feed us!

It was like we hadn’t eaten for a year,” laughs Rossi. That ravenous approach got them off to a flying start, with work such as Snickers’ You’re Not You When You’re Hungry Twitter campaign, which saw model Katie Price’s out-of-character musings on economics mentioned in the UK parliament – proving that even in this age of jaded audience palates and fragmented media, “fame and talkability” can still be generated.    

In 2013, the pair were promoted to joint ECDs, a role they had neither sought nor expected and which proved a massive learning curve. Do they miss working in the trenches? “It’s just a different form of creativity,” reflects Rossi. “You’re not coming up with ideas from scratch but you are helping to shape other people’s. That brings its own rewards.”

They still write one or two ads a year, such as Mog’s Christmas Calamity for Sainsbury’s. As well as scratching a creative itch, it’s an important reality check, says Grieve: “Doing that reminds us how hard it is to be confronted by a blank piece of paper and to have to come up with the answer. It allows you to be more empathetic towards the team.”

Empathy, support and room to breathe are all key elements of the environment Grieve and Rossi are propagating at AMV, in line with the agency’s famously ego-less culture.

In contrast to the work-til-you-drop mentality behind those ‘Weekend+Kennedy’ and ‘GBH’ nicknames, the pair “strongly believe that if people are happy, they’ll produce their best work” and seem genuinely concerned with putting the teams’ needs first. “Of course there’s a hierarchy and nominally we’re their bosses, but really we’re servicing them,” says Grieve.

However, they’re keen to stress that this cosy reputation doesn’t make for cosy campaigns. Far from it. “There’s no reason why, if it’s right, we can’t sometimes do work that’s irreverent or provocative,” says Grieve.

That diversity of tone applies to different channels, too, and though the agency’s name will be irrevocably linked with the epic likes of Guinness Surfer, Rossi points out it has moved with the times. “If we need to do a big blockbuster ad, we’ll do that, and if we need to invent a game, or an app, or a social campaign, we’ll do that too – it’s whatever works best for that brief and those clients.” 

Dixons – from crap ads to kudos

If the past year is anything to go by, Grieve and Rossi have certainly found their feet as ECDs. The agency has been churning out hits, from populist TVCs (Lotto’s Please Not Them; Sainsbury’s Mog’s Christmas Calamity) to poignant docu-shorts (Guinness’ Never Alone) and after sweeping the board at the 2016 British Arrows, Cannes glory surely lies ahead for the brilliant Spare The Act, for Dixons-owned Currys PC World, which sees Jeff Goldblum coaching unlucky gift recipients in the art of acting.

The £50 million Dixons account was the first that Grieve and Rossi won as ECDs, and they are justly proud of their success – particularly given the brand’s lack of creative heritage. “At Saatchi [which held the account at the time] it was seen as a piece of shit, which is probably too kind a word,” recalls Rossi. “They put the creatives who worked on it on a separate floor – it was like creative apartheid! To go from that… to where it is now, where we have a truly great client, with great vision and great support – it’s an incredible turnaround. Now everyone wants to work on it. And that’s a great place to be.”

Whether it was the hand of fate or just a canny bit of matchmaking that brought the two together, this is a union that brings out the best in each partner. “We’re pushing each other to greater heights all the time,” concludes Rossi. “That’s good for the work – and good for the agency.”