• Boston Business Journal, Monday, February 10, 2014 10:38 AM

If you’ve lived in Boston, you probably haven’t heard of DeVito/Verdi. But there’s a good chance that you’ve seen an ad from the New York agency.

The firm’s work is perhaps best known around here by its succession of offbeat Legal Sea Foods T ads that insulted T conductors as part of its “fresh fish” campaign, and later satirized the environmental movement with a subsequent campaign’s save-this-fish-so-we-can-grill-it theme.

Lately, DeVito/Verdi is finding its way into other corners of Boston’s economy. The firm is behind the near-ubiquitous Herb Chambers ad campaign that’s been underway for nearly two months for the car dealer, and a branding effort aimed at humanizing Fallon Health, the Worcester-based health insurer. Suffolk University hired DeVito/Verdi for a new campaign in December, and the ad agency is busy interviewing Suffolk officials and alumni as part of its research.

What’s interesting about the accounts is that they are, by and large, primarily regional businesses with a regional focus. So how the heck did a New York firm get the gig, instead of one of the numerous local ad shops?

Ellis Verdi tells me his firm didn’t necessarily make a concerted effort to expand its Boston presence. But now that such an effort is underway, he says the agency is looking at possibly opening a third office here. (It also has an office in San Diego, but the bulk of its 140-person staff is based in Manhattan.)

This hasn’t necessarily been easy, breaking into Boston. The potential clients in Boston often have entrenched relationships with agencies that go back for years. Unlike in New York, the ad folks here will regularly see their clients at functions, on the street, or at the ballgame.

“It’s been tough to make inroads into Boston,” says Verdi, who oversees the firm with creative partner Sal DeVito. “Boston is a little bit insular, as a business community. … But it’s a very smart community.”

Herb Chambers tells me he picked DeVito/Verdi because of its memorable work for Legal Sea Foods. Chambers says he wanted a campaign that would stand out amid all of his rivals’ car ads -- one that would be more memorable in part because it’s more unusual.

That was certainly a motivating factor behind Suffolk’s choice as well. Greg Gatlin, Suffolk’s vice president of marketing, tells me that DeVito/Verdi’s unconventional approach was appealing to Suffolk. Gatlin says the agency also had a clear track record of creating ads that developed an emotional connection with people. The university didn’t necessarily set out to pick an agency that wasn’t in Boston, but Gatlin says Suffolk officials were thinking they might not want to go with a traditional higher education consultant. The fact that DeVito/Verdi had experience in industries other than higher ed was a plus, not a minus, in Suffolk’s case.

For Gatlin, DeVito/Verdi’s talent is crystallized in one sentence -- a phrase that appeared in an ad for New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital that can practically make you laugh and cry at the same time: “We turned a child who couldn’t hear into a typical 2 year old who doesn’t listen.”

The Suffolk campaign is still taking shape, as the agency’s research hones a message about what makes Suffolk so special. Verdi says stakeholders are being asked what they would miss about Suffolk if the university disappeared. A theme is emerging around how the school has provided access to people who might otherwise find it tough to get a college education. But there are other ideas in play as well.

Part of the firm's strength, Verdi says, is its independence. Unlike many of its rivals, DeVito/Verdi never sold out to one of the big multinational conglomerates. “It’s a rare thing right now,” Verdi says. “When you have that strength, you can take a risk, you can have that point of view, you can put your heart into your work. We’ve never worked for a paycheck.”

Read the whole story at Boston Business Journal »