Direct 2.0

David Ogilvy advised us to “hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it”.  While I’ve never worked for O&M, I’ve always followed that advice. That’s why I surround myself with the best and brightest in their respective fields. Today, I’ll talk about two key colleagues -- John Fatteross and Greg Verdino and will in the future, introduce you to other DVI practice leaders.

When I started DVI in 2003, John was the very first person I called and has since been involved in almost every DVI engagement. He is, without question, one of the best creative strategists in the business. He’s earned numerous industry awards, including The Ad Club’s Gold Award, the AMA’s Gold Spire Award, CADC Excellence Award, ADWEEK Magazine’s ICON Award, the Andy, the One Show and others. He never fails to knock our socks off!

Greg Verdino, our resident futurist and digital and social guru, is one of the brightest and nicest guys I know. He is a pleasure to work with! Greg is the author of microMARKETING: Get Big Results by Thinking and Acting Small (McGraw-Hill, 2010) and contributing author of Reinventing Interactive and Direct Marketing (Stan Rapp, McGraw-Hill, 2009). He is an expert in social media and has appeared and/or published in Advertising Age, Adweek, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, CNN, Cablevision News12, Fox News Channel, The New York Times, Newsday and others.

I would not have succeeded without John and Greg, and others who you will learn more about soon.