Ellis Verdi, President Sal DeVito, Executive Creative Director
Services
Strategic/brand leadership, creative services, media planning/buying, production broadcast and print, digital, research, public relations, direct marketing, online/wireless, sales promotion and design/collateral development.
The firm is led by Sal DeVito, Executive Creative Director (left) and Ellis Verdi, President.
In 1988, the agency was opened as Follis & Verdi by Ellis Verdi and John Follis, partner and creative director. In 1991, Sal DeVito joins the firm as a second partner and creative director and the name becomes Follis/DeVito/Verdi.[2] In July 1993, Follis left the firm citing philosophical differences, and opened his own New York agency, now known as Follis Advertising. In 1993, the firm is renamed DeVito/Verdi.[3]
In 1997, the agency receives notoriety when the Mayor of New YorkRudy Giuliani orders the removal of advertisements mentioning the mayor from the city busses.[4]
In 1998, the company has won an award as best small creative agency for the fourth straight year.[5] In 2000, the firm produced television commercials and other advertising for the United States Senate election in New York for Hillary Clinton.[6] By the year 2001, the firm's annual billings reached an estimated $134 million and this would grow to over $220 million in 2006. Also in 2006, the New York City Office of Emergency Management contracted DeVito/Verdi to create advertisements to make city residents more aware of potential emergencies like floods, storms, and power loss.[7] The agency formed a public relations division during the year.
In 2007, after a six-month review, the Sports Authority selected DeVito/Verdi to handle online, print, television, and radio advertising for the sports retailer.[8]
In 2011, DeVito/Verdi won more awards than any other agency with a total of 13 awards at the Racie Award Show with a sweep in the radio and magazine categories.[9]
DeVito/Verdi opened their West Coast office in San Diego in 2011.
The agency is media-agnostic and develops plans involving all agency disciplines.
An ad from the New York Magazine campaign.
Recognition
In 1993, Follis/DeVito/Verdi won nine ADDY Awards making it the second most awarded agency in New York.[11]
In 2010, DeVito/Verdi won the "Best of the Best Among All Ads" at the National Retail Federation (RACie) award show. The Ehrlich Pest Control radio spot that was competed against television and marketing communications from major retailers.[12]
The ad agency was recognized by the 2006 International ANDY Awards, the Healthcare Advertising Awards and The Outdoor Advertising Association of America competitions for its work for Mount Sinai Hospital. DeVito/Verdi's campaign for Mount Sinai took home the highest honors at the 23rd Annual Healthcare Advertising Awards in June 2009. The campaign was awarded top prize in the Large Hospitals Group for three different categories: Magazine, Billboard and Radio. The agency was a two-time winner at the prestigious ANDY Awards for its out-of-home advertising, and for its entire print campaign to promote the hospital's services and stellar qualifications.[15]
A poster by DeVito/Verdi used in a campaign for Premier Health Partners focusing on the opioid epidemic in the Dayton, Ohio area.
In July 2015, DeVito/Verdi won a silver Telly advertising award for a 30-second television spot lampooning greedy and uncaring bankers for the New England Federal Credit Union.[16]
In December 2015, the agency was awarded a single Gold Ingot at the Midas Awards for the world's best financial advertising. The award for was for the agencies work with the New England Federal Credit Union.[17]
In October 2016, Devito/Verdi won a total of 11 Hatch Awards for the print and television campaigns for the furniture retailer Bernie & Phyl's. The firm took home the top prize in the category for the best "Television Campaigns Under $50,000," and tied for the best in the "Regional TV Campaign" category, along with four silver, one bronze, and six merit awards.[18]
In September 2017, two of DeVito/Verdi's radio ads for the National Thoroughbred Racing Association won "Hall of Fame" awards at the 2017 Clio Awards show. The Hall of Fame selections are for "outstanding work from the past that has stood the test of time and cemented a place of honor and respect in the hearts and memories of consumers and advertising professionals alike".[19][20][21]
Notable Ads
A piece from the campaign for Daffy's clothing.
Daffy's - 'DeVito/Verdi created a series of ads that told New Yorkers they'd be crazy to pay too much for clothes. One ad showed a picture of a straitjacket: "If you're paying over $100 for a dress shirt," the headline read, "may we suggest a jacket to go with it?"
New York Magazine - DeVito/Verdi's campaign for New York Magazine billed it as "Possibly the only good thing in New York Rudy hasn't taken credit for."
New York Resident Magazine - "In an age when ever-greater value is placed on the science of advertising, Devito/Verdi has remained committed to smart slogans and crisp concepts. With fiendishly clever phrases, highly evocative images and a high-impact sensibility, Devito/Verdi keeps to classic standards retains a classic comic sensibility in what has otherwise become a more uniformed world of glitzy show-and-tell." [22]
Time Out Magazine - One of DeVito/Verdi's advertisement for Time Out Magazine read "Our magazine is a lot like the average New Yorker, I'll tell you where you can go and what you can do with yourself.[23]
Legal Sea Foods - During the 2016 United States presidential election, the east coast restaurant chain, Legal Sea Foods ran a campaign with their CEO Roger Berkowitz running a faux presidential bid. In one short television spot, the restaurant's CEO supports LGBT rights, by noting "that's why we serve rainbow trout". In another spot, Berkowitz declares, "If we build a wall on the border, who will eat our delicious fish tacos?"[24][25]
In 2017, DeVito/Verdi produced a series of television commercials for Legal Sea Foods where fish and crustaceans lament by singing the blues about not being selected to be served by the restaurant chain.[26]
Mount Sinai Health System - In a campaign that began in July 2015, Mount Sinai Health System ran print and television spots in the New York metropolitan area showing how the organization is "changing the face of medicine." One of the 15-second TV spots shows a single mountaineer climbing a steep cliff with a voice-over, "The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who's doing it." The ad ends with black text which reads, "Changing the face of medicine." And the final frames display Mount Sinai's logo and its campaign tagline, "For you. For life."[27]
A marijuana-themed print spot that was part of the marketing campaign dubbed "Welcome to Legal.
Bernie & Phyl's - In an effort to reach a younger consumers who usually avoid traditional media, furniture retailer Bernie & Phyl's hired DeVito/Verdi to come up with a poster campaign for commuters on Boston's subway system. The ads were designed to look like kinky or lewd classified personal ads, but use clever word play to capture the attention of smartphone focused commuters.[29][30] In May 2017, some of the ads were removed from the MBTA's subway cars for being too sexually suggestive. Devito started a new campaign in August 2017, featuring the removed ads covered by a "Banned in Boston" banner explaining why the government agency pulled the advertisement.[31]
In 2018, DeVito/Verdi helped to create a campaign for Premier Health Partners focusing on the opioid epidemic in the Dayton, Ohio area. The print advertisement showed an expensive smartphone, with a description of the features and then moving on to a justification for stealing the phone and selling it to get enough opioids for the week before quitting. The tagline of the advertisement was "The world looks different when you're addicted to opioids".[32]
During the spring of 2018, DeVito/Verdi started a marketing campaign to effect changes in patient behavior for BayCare Health System's patients about when to use telehealth, urgent care, the emergency room, or their Primary care physician. One billboard showed a bee and a beehive with the visual; of if a patient steps on a bee, then they should head to urgent care, but if they step on a beehive, then they should head for the emergency room.[33]
During the late summer of 2019, Devito/Verdi created a cannabis themed campaign for Legal Sea Foods, that is headquartered in Massachusetts, a state that legalized the recreational use of marijuana in 2016. The "Welcome to Legal" spots air on local television stations at 4:20 pm and are full of pot puns and psychedelic art fish arrangements. Examples of the slogans and puns included in the creative are; "Our fish are freshly baked," "Right now our fish are high… in Omega 3s," "Right now we're packing bowls… with clam chowder," and "Right now we're smoking… salmon".[34]
Notable clients
DeVito/Verdi has worked for clients such as Meijer, The National Association of Broadcasters, Sony, Canon, BMW, Circuit City, Daffy's, Esquire Magazine, TimeOut Magazine, Grey Goose Vodka, SteinMart, Reebok, Massachusetts General Hospital, Hotwire.com, Office Depot, Legal Sea Foods, The Herb Chambers Companies, Legal Sea Foods, Gildan Activewear, Fallon Community Health Plan, Gold Toe, Suffolk University, Pepsi/SOBE, Corazon Tequila, Gordmans, Empire Kosher Chicken, BevMo!, Acura, CarMax, Sports Authority, University of Chicago Medical Center, Laurel Road, and others.[35][36][37][38][39]
Absolut Vodka is a brand of vodka, produced near Åhus, in southern Sweden. Absolut is a part of the French group Pernod Ricard. Pernod Ricard bought Absolut for €5.63 billion in 2008 from the Swedish state. Absolut is one of the largest brands of spirits in the world and is sold in 126 countries.
An advertising agency, often referred to as a creative agency or an ad agency, is a business dedicated to creating, planning, and handling advertising and sometimes other forms of promotion and marketing for its clients. An ad agency is generally independent of the client; it may be an internal department or agency that provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services, or an outside firm. An agency can also handle overall marketing and branding strategies promotions for its clients, which may include sales as well.
Google Ads is an online advertising platform developed by Google, where advertisers bid to display brief advertisements, service offerings, product listings, and videos to web users. It can place ads in the results of search engines like Google Search, mobile apps, videos, and on non-search websites. Services are offered under a pay-per-click (PPC) pricing model.
The Advertising Council, commonly known as the Ad Council, is an American nonprofit organization that produces, distributes, and promotes public service announcements on behalf of various sponsors, including nonprofit organizations, non-governmental organizations and agencies of the United States government.
"Harry and Louise" was a $14 to $20 million year-long television advertising campaign funded by the Health Insurance Association of America (HIAA) – a predecessor organization which merged into the AHIP – a health insurance industry lobby group, that ran intermittently from September 8, 1993, to September 1994 in opposition to the Clinton health care plan of 1993 and Congressional health care reform proposals in 1994. Fourteen television ads and radio and print advertising depicted a fictional suburban forty-something middle-class married couple, portrayed by actors Harry Johnson and Louise Caire Clark, despairing over bureaucratic and other aspects of health care reform plans and urging viewers to contact their representatives in Congress. The commercials were ordered by HIAA president Bill Gradison and HIAA executive vice president Chip Kahn, and created by California public relations consultants Ben Goddard and Rick Claussen of Goddard Claussen.
Ogilvy is a New York City-based British advertising, marketing, and public relations agency. It was founded in 1850 by Edmund Mather as a London-based agency. In 1964, the firm became known as Ogilvy & Mather after merging with a New York City agency that was founded in 1948 by David Ogilvy.
The National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA) is a broad-based coalition of American horse racing interests consisting of leading thoroughbred racetracks, owners, breeders, trainers and affiliated horse racing associations, charged with increasing the popularity of horse racing and improving economic conditions for industry participants. The NTRA has offices in Lexington, Kentucky, and Rye Brook, New York.
J. Walter Thompson (JWT) was an advertisement holding company incorporated in 1896 by American advertising pioneer James Walter Thompson. The company was acquired in 1987 by multinational holding company WPP plc, and in November 2018, WPP merged J. Walter Thompson with fellow agency Wunderman to form Wunderman Thompson.
Legal Sea Foods is an American restaurant chain of casual-dining seafood restaurants primarily located in the Northeastern region of the United States.
"Prouder, Stronger, Better", commonly referred to by the name "Morning in America", is a 1984 political campaign television commercial, known for its opening line, "It's morning again in America." The ad was part of that year's presidential campaign of Republican Party candidate Ronald Reagan. It featured a montage of images of Americans going to work, and a calm, optimistic narration that suggested that the improvements to the U.S. economy since the 1980 election were due to Reagan's policies. It asked voters why they would want to return to the pre-Reagan policies of Democrats.
Wieden+Kennedy is an American independent global advertising agency best known for its work for Nike. Founded by Dan Wieden and David Kennedy, and headquartered in Portland, Oregon, it is one of the largest independently owned advertising agencies in the world.
Foote, Cone & Belding (FCB), is one of the largest global advertising agency networks. It is owned by Interpublic Group and was merged in 2006 with Draft Worldwide, adopting the name Draftfcb. In 2014 the company rebranded itself as FCB.
MullenLowe U.S. is a Boston, Massachusetts-based advertising and marketing communications agency, a part of MullenLowe Group owned by multinational advertising network Interpublic Group of Companies (IPG). It has regional offices in Los Angeles, New York City and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The agency provides creative, media, brand planning, direct-marketing, interactive, design, and public relations.
Moores the Suit People, Corp. is a Canadian company specializing in business clothing and formalwear for men. It is an affiliate of Men's Wearhouse in the United States.
The Commercial Closet Association (CCA) was a New York City based non-profit organization, founded in 2001 to provide "training and best practices on the representation of" the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. It hoped to affect the $1.1 trillion annual worldwide advertising market. Its board announced its closure in 2009 after merging with the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).
Direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) refers to the marketing and advertising of pharmaceutical products directly to consumers as patients, as opposed to specifically targeting health professionals. The term is synonymous primarily with the advertising of prescription medicines via mass media platforms—most commonly on television and in magazines, but also via online platforms.
The Mount Sinai Health System is a hospital network in New York City. It was formed in September 2013 by merging the operations of Continuum Health Partners and the Mount Sinai Medical Center.
Mower is a full-service integrated marketing communications agency that offers consumer and business-to-business marketing and public relations/public affairs.
Ellis Verdi is an American marketing and advertising executive based in New York City, New York. He is the founder, along with Sal DeVito of the DeVito/Verdi advertising agency.
Sal DeVito is an American marketing and advertising creative director based in New York City, New York. He is a partner, with Ellis Verdi, in DeVito/Verdi.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
