Matthew Ammirati On The Spot

With a surname as weighty as Ammirati, Matthew, the 31-year-old president of Ammirati in New York, knows he has a lot to live up to. "Will I ever achieve that level?" he asks. "I could only hope." The School of Visual Arts grad started at Ammirati Puris Lintas, and then in 2000 launched his own shop. Like his great uncle's famous agency, his bears a stark white motif, and the self-proclaimed perfectionist keeps it neat. The 15-person shop is currently rolling out national print ads for Budweiser and Bud Light. Ammirati lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Nicole, and long-haired chihuahua Lola. – Q: How did you get into advertising? Ralph and I weren't close relatives due to some family conflicts that dated back years and years. In my first year [at SVA], I gave Ralph a ring and left a message and said, "You know, I'd like to see what you do." He said, "We've got this small agency, sure, come up." Lo and behold, it was 18 floors in this giant building with accounts like Burger King and Four Seasons Hotel, Legos, the list went on ... Being up there was my first real eye-opener, where I said I might really want to be a part of something like this. You didn't connect with Ralph until college? We didn't have much contact with the family, just funerals and stuff like that. But I heard that Ralph and I have a lot of similarities. His sons and I very quickly became good friends. [Photographer] Robert Ammirati is someone to talk to daily. And they really helped me get to the business and the rights and wrongs with business. At that time, Ralph already was pretty much out of the business. I worked there all throughout school, until Lowe took over. I got let go the day they took the name off the wall. I got to keep the letters; I have some of them here. What was the best thing about working there?I was basically [co-cd] Roger [Bentley's] sidekick. It was amazing, and I got to travel around the world. I got to work on accounts that most people wouldn't have right off the bat. On the flip side, I had to deal with having a last name at such a huge agency and working for an icon. What was some of the good and the bad?At the time, I was naive to the whole thing. Ralph to me was a relative. I didn't understand how big he was in this small world. But my real eye-opener to that, it might sound funny, was I heard some other person talking on the floor that he got to stand next to Ralph while he was in the bathroom. He had this sighting of him and it puts him on the superstar level with these people. But with that came my name, there was access to things, like being in the top group. But every award ... how great the ad was, or how much the client loved it, no matter what I did, it was always I got it because of my last name.You were obviously influenced by Ralph, though; everything in here is white. Those aren't learned things. Our compulsive behavior is a gene thing. That high level of creative detail and not leaving anything that should be there out. The simplicity of how I live my life. My home is like this, too. How did you start the agency?And 1 sneakers wanted some TV commercials. That same week ... Kyocera [Wireless] needed help with logo designs and concepts. The chips kind of all fell into place. I called up Ralph and said, "What do you think about this?" And he said, "There's kind of nothing to think about. Someone's handing you something. There's gonna be no question. Just go take it. See where it ends up." What is your survival strategy? We've really diversified the place. We can do photo retouching in-house. We actually do press proofs in-house now. We do promotion graphics in-house, 3-D animation and then we do our traditional print and TV. Have editing capabilities in-house. What are you doing for Atari?[For Marc Ecko's Getting Up,] we started doing virtual advertising. Creating virtual brands, from a zoo to a pizza chain to a coffee chain, a bank, a government infrastructure. Everything from advertising to logos to uniforms. Why are you interested in gaming? This game that we're working on has 1 million pre-sold units. On the smallest end, you have a guaranteed 1 million users ... And then you're gonna have repeat use. ... So you might end up with a 30-second TV commercial with a limited media buy. Your comparable amount of money, but the exposure goes on and on. A good game can last four years. What was the last ad that made you think, "I wish I had done that."The Bud Light malfunction ad. Everyone was trying to one-up "the incident," and this one was by far the best. So good that the network wouldn't air it. What's the smartest business decision you've ever made?To work with Todd Wender, our cd. The two of us are very ying and yang. What about the dumbest?Oh there's just so many, but when you think about it they all turn into positive. We moved into our office with three people—we thought at the time it was the dumbest decision we ever made. What are we gonna do with this much space? They all look dumb in the beginning. What's your biggest pet peeve?My biggest pet peeve is messy office spaces. What's the most important thing you've learned from your parents?Integrity of your name.

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Matthew Ammirati On The Spot

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