Ellis Verdi

Ellis Verdi (born December 11, 1955) 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.

Early years Verdi was born at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City and grew up in Switzerland and France until he was teenager and then moved back to New York and attended the Louis D. Brandeis High School on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He graduated from high school in 1973. Later that year, he attended Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts where he majored in political science. While in college he was known for keeping tropical fish tanks stocked with small piranhas and screening first-run movies on campus.

Career After graduating from Brandeis in 1977, Verdi planned on going to law school and moved back to New York where he progressed through a series of sort-term and unfulfilling jobs. His first advertising position was with SSC&B as an assistant media planner. In 1980 he became a brand manager for American Home Products. In 1982 Verdi became a product manager for PepsiCo working on the different diet brands and Mountain Dew accounts.

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 was renamed DeVito/Verdi.

In the 1990s, Verdi was credited with coining the marketing term, "top-of-mind awareness".

In 1993, DeVito/Verdi won the CarMax account and Verdi helped to create a national retail brand for this chain of used automobile dealers. The agency was hired even before the first location opened and Verdi executed the campaign and additional television advertisements over the course of a number of years in support of the launch and the initial wave of stores.

In 1999 Verdi was hired, without any previous political experience, to do the advertising for the Hillary Clinton 2000 United States Senate election for New York. The agency produced a series of ads that showed the candidate with a number of "firsts", "Not just the first lady."

By 2001, the agency had approximately $134 million in ad billings and 64 employees. The firm was voted the best small advertising agency and one of three finalists for best mid-sized firm.

2010s In October 2016, Ellis' firm won eleven television and print Hatch Awards for using vintage stock film from old black and white movies with dubbed and updated dialogue to pitch a furniture retailer, Bernie & Phyl's.

2020s In January 2020, in an interview with The New York Times, Verdi said about the advertising environment in the United States before the 2020 United States presidential election as "more scary than exciting". He continued with the analysis, "Even free expression is a challenge right now. People are holding their hands over their eyes and ears a little bit. This is not the moment for advertisers to take risks."

Personal life Verdi is married to Marcy and they have two children, Jessica and Marshall. In his free time, Verdi likes to travel and scuba dive.