Grey appoints Canon Wu as chief digital creative officer

Wu (pictured) told Campaign Asia-Pacific on her first day (10 September) at Grey Group: "We want to set up a digital hub, but not as a department. Digital is like the air that we have to breath — if an agency is still talking about a digital team, it is so outdated because everyone is digital — you can't live without it."

Yuming Cho from OgilvyOne joins Wu as creative director at Grey Group, bringing with him 12 years of digital creative experience.

Wu intends to work closely with creative, account service, planning and integrated resources in Grey China for existing clients, and bring in digital-only new clients.

Wu is one of the few women creative leaders in Greater China with a proven creative and business record.

Prior to her appointment, she was most recently chief creative officer at Can Create in McCann Worldgroup China, where she built a highly creative digital team from scratch and brought in new digital business wins like L’Oreal Paris, Maybelline New York, Puma, Shanghai General Motors, and worked on MNC clients' accounts, including Coca-Coca.

Her digital work for Puma was the fourth most recalled campaign across all categories, winning a gold award at the ROI Festival in China, silver at the Asian Marketing Effectiveness Awards and bronze at the AME Awards in New York.

Under her stewardship Can Create won numerous awards, including at the Mobius Advertising Awards, Times International Chinese Advertising Awards, the Diamond Awards and China Effie Awards.

The creative veteran also brings with her two decades of experience in traditional mediums. Her first notable success was as CD of Oglivy Taiwan in 2001, where she set a Taiwanese record for “Most Gold Awards” for her work for Sony Ericsson. While at Oglivy Shanghai, where she was ECD, she crafted successful campaigns for clients such as Haier, Bright Dairy and eBay China.

Nirvik Singh, chairman and CEO of Grey Group Asia-Pacific welcomed Wu on board: "Canon will be a great asset to the fast-growing business in China. Her appointment not only strengthens our local strategic involvement, but also underlines China’s significance as a key market for the group."

Grey has attracted a number of hot talents from McCann Worldgroup this year.

Pratik Thakar started his new job as executive VP/chief strategist and innovation officer for Greater China in April.

Reported last week, Grey Hong Kong has hired two ‘young and aggressive’ new bloods: Australian-born Malaysian-Chinese Eric Leong as senior strategic planner and 10-year digital veteran Alison Teh from Malaysia as digital director.

Meanwhile, reported in August, Saatchi & Saatchi has lured heavyweight creative leader Carol Lam (林小琪) from McCann Shanghai as chief creative officer and managing partner of South China.