Why Ogilvy made a weirdly hilarious ad for a Staten Island realtor

Ogilvy is one of the industry giants, handling multimillion-dollar campaigns for a large roster of multinational corporations. But its latest spot promotes a business that couldn’t be further from the hallowed halls of the Fortune 500. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs It’s for Island Wide Realty, a small real estate company on New York’s Staten Island owned by Anthony Bernardo, aka Tony B. The two-minute spot, which Bernardo posted to his Instagram this week, is peculiar indeed, featuring many of the tropes of local advertising, including loud onscreen graphics and intentionally awkward moments. There are surreal touches, too, including a cameo from Baby Tony B—who, it turns out, is just as straight-talking as the old man. The project was led by Chris Beresford-Hill, president and chief creative officer of Ogilvy North America. It came about by chance, as he was scrolling Instagram one day and stumbled upon a reel posted by Tony B, who’s developed a bit of a cult following on the platform. “The algorithm made it happen,” Beresford-Hill told Ad Age. “Suddenly, there was this very stilted, very interesting Staten Island realtor showing properties but never actually taking you inside them—telling you what to do, rather than trying to romance it. There was something so unique about the way he did it.” What really sparked his interest, though, was that Randy Krallman, the Smuggler director, had liked the video as well. Krallman is a master of the absurd whose credits include the legendary Starburst “Little Lad” spot and many of the E-Trade baby ads. This shared appreciation got Beresford-Hill thinking. “He and I started DM-ing and saying, ‘So you’re a fan of Island Wide Realty. I’m a fan of Island Wide Realty!’” he said. “Then I shared it with a couple of people in the New York office, and we all sort of became fans. And we just decided, let’s do something for them. Obviously he’s shooting his own stuff—his wife is shooting it for him. Let’s give Island Wide Realty the Ogilvy-Smuggler treatment.” “Chris’s thought was, ‘Can we use our day jobs to actually improve his core business?’” Krallman said. “We both loved the notion of using Ogilvy and Smuggler’s resources to do for Tony what we do for giant companies.” So, they reached out. At first, though, Bernardo was skeptical—wondering what these fancy ad guys really wanted from him. “He was very much like, ‘Uh-huh, what’s it for you?’” said Beresford-Hill. “We went to a few lunches out on Staten Island. It didn’t hurt that our producer is from Queens, our director is from Brooklyn. I think he got more comfortable when he realized we weren’t showing up as some Parisian holding company.” Ad Age Creativity Bookmark our section covering the best in brand creativity every day Read more here Eventually, they agreed to work together. Creatively, the goal from the beginning was to embrace who Tony B already is and what he does—and just enhance that, without turning him into a caricature. “Rather than try to emulate his social media—you can’t improve on perfection—the idea was to have the creatives and Tony write his dream commercial to showcase his business for locals that might not be aware of his social media presence,” Krallman said. Soon, they had a script. In the end, Krallman said, Bernardo really steered the direction of the piece—with Krallman himself serving almost more as a producer. “We met a couple times to get a sense of what he was looking for from the commercial,” he said. “We broke bread with him and his right-hand man, Tony C, met some of the locals, got a tour of some of his properties. Then it was just about pairing him with an enthusiastic crew to execute his vision. You don’t really tell Tony B what to say or do—the man knows who he is and what he wants.” With a relationship of trust established and a creative direction agreed upon, the shoot itself went smoothly. (Ogilvy and Smuggler both donated their services pro bono, as did other partners, such as Friendshop, JSM Music, Sonic Union, Artery and Color Collective.) “When we asked Tony to lie down on a homemade greenscreen bed with his shirt off, and run about 10 minutes of lines as Baby Tony B, he didn’t think that was weird at all,” Beresford-Hill said. “We were throwing lines at him. His timing was impeccable. By the end, it was one of the more fun shoot days I think any of us had experienced.” “He’s a great guy, a family man with a great sense of humor, a strong work ethic and community, and a hilarious group of friends,” added Kallman. “I expect a reality show sooner rather than later.” Finding fun, and purpose, on a smaller scale As for the larger question of why a large agency like Ogilvy would spend time on such a small, idiosyncratic project, Beresford-Hill said it has something to do with where the industry, and Ogilvy specifically, has been headed these past few years—particularly around purpose-driven work. “Five or 10 years ago, we would take on purpose work to feel good and to flex our creative muscles,” he said. “But now, purpose work is at the center of our biggest brands. We get to do it every day. What we might not be doing as much of is having pure fun in the work.” Helping out small businesses, then, can become a different path to purpose—and one that maybe holds even more promise as a creative outlet. After all, as comedians Rhett & Link memorably taught us more than a decade ago—particularly with this Cullman Liquidation spot, which Errol Morris called his favorite ad ever—there’s nothing like doing local advertising if you want to have some fun. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs “You’ve got to put out into the universe what you want to get back,” Beresford-Hill said. “Sometimes we overthink and overstrategize things. Sometimes you’ve just got to have fun and let things fly and be a little more natural. It feels worthwhile, taking these small businesses that have some personality, and not spending tons of time and research and strategy but just seeing if we can accelerate what they’re doing. If we add some creativity and craft to the mix, can we take it up a notch for them?” The plan going forward is for Ogilvy’s New York office—and likely Chicago as well—to pick a different local business in town each year and do something in the same spirit as the Tony B campaign. “Something about advertising small businesses is really funny. I don’t think we do enough of it because clearly, comedically, there’s value,” Beresford-Hill said. “Maybe it’s cosmic, because I think we’re getting to a fun place generally [with comedy at Ogilvy]. Verizon is starting to do some fun stuff. A lot of the upcoming Super Bowl stuff is fun. I think the whole universe, for us, is just going that way.”

Why Ogilvy made a weirdly hilarious ad for a Staten Island realtor

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