The World: Grey works to turn around creative reputation.

Chairman Ed Meyer wants to challenge the local perception that Grey means grey. James Hamilton examines the evidence.

If Jim Heekin's appointment to chief executive of the Grey Network and heir-apparent to the chairmanship of the Grey Global Group was meant to signal the start of a slowdown in Ed Meyer's diary, no-one told the 78-year-old Grey Global Group chairman.

On a hot summer's day in New York,when Meyer would be better off up-state, practising for his much-predicted retirement, he is in the office, surveying his domain.

The world isn't kind when it comes to Grey. Lick a finger, hold it up to the industry wind and whatever continent you are in, you will feel a similar chill. 'Deeply unexciting,' a UK chief executive says. 'Lacklustre,' a US network chief says. 'Workmanlike,' is the judgment of the Asian jury.

The problem with Grey, they all say, is that while its geographical coverage and account handling are laudable - second to none, even, in the latter's case - its creative reputation is, well, grey.

'I think that's fair,' Meyer says. 'Most large agencies seem to have something of the same problem, though, because we have allowed the boutiques to grab the mantle of creative brilliance. But that's all they have to sell.'

Meyer, Heekin and their regional network chiefs know the group's major challenge is to raise the creative bar. This is not something Heekin was famous for at his former homes, McCann Erickson and Euro RSCG. Achieve that, and Grey could take up a leading position within WPP to handle some accounts that Sir Martin Sorrell would have problems placing elsewhere.