By Robert Goldrich

For the past seven years, John Dukakis served as an executive VP at Los Angeles-based Overbrook, a multimedia production company and personal management firm owned and operated by Will Smith and his partner, James Lassiter.

Prior to that, Dukakis was a principal in Southpaw Entertainment, a personal management company in L.A. that started out with client Boyz II Men and then went on to also handle the careers of Janet Jackson, Vanessa Williams, Brownstone and Blackstreet.
Earlier Dukakis had been general manager of Paisley Park Records, a joint venture between the artist Prince and Warner Bros. Records.

Dukakis broke into the business end of the industry in 1989, working with noted Boston-based sports attorney Bob Woolf. Dukakis ran the music business management department for Woolf and helped to develop a then local act, New Kids on the Block. Within several years the company grew and Dukakis moved to L.A. to open an office there to work with a mix of established and developing acts. When he left the firm in ’92, it had branched out into relationships with Boyz II Men and Marky Mark & The Funky Bunch.

Dukakis is well versed in politics. In the mid-1980s, he was a legislative assistant to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) during his first two years in office. Dukakis later worked on the Presidential campaign for his father, then-Gov. Michael Dukakis (D-Mass.).

Now John Dukakis embarks on a new career chapter, joining Boston-headquartered Hill Holliday as director of branded entertainment, marking his first foray into the ad agency arena. Baba Shetty, exec VP/chief media officer for Hill Holliday, said Dukakis brings “first caliber entertainment industry experience” to and represents “a great cultural fit” for the agency.

SHOOT: What drew you to the advertising agency world?

Dukakis: Advertising is a rapidly changing industry that combines the two main focuses of my career–creation of content and the marketing of it, whether it’s music or entertainment. For the most part, I’ve been very involved in the business and marketing side of music and entertainment, and in knowing the right people and putting the right packages together to create great content. The agency side gives me the opportunity to combine all these experiences and to contribute to branding and helping our clients. It’s all about communication and getting your message out there whether it’s in politics, music or any form of entertainment.

Advertisers today are looking for more effective ways of reaching people. Branded entertainment and all the different media platforms offer some exciting possibilities. It’s all about who can construct the most creative, interesting content that’s true to the message. And that’s the challenge that brought me to the agency world.

SHOOT: Why Hill Holliday?

Dukakis: It’s an agency that thinks broadly about media. The people here are very involved in discovering new opportunities, they’re very forward thinking, very creative. Hill Holliday simply has a great creative culture. It’s not a parochial Boston agency. It’s very much a national agency [with additional offices in New York, Miami Beach and Greenville, S.C.] that’s reaching out to do more. I like that open working philosophy. That’s why they’ve been able to attract great clients. And that’s what attracted me.
    Also personally I was very interested in returning with my family to Boston after spending the past 17 years in Los Angeles.

SHOOT: What were you up to in Los Angeles–most recently at Overbrook and before that while you were with Southpaw?

Dukakis: I enjoyed varied, valuable experiences in L.A. At Overbrook, for example, I was involved in handling all of Will Smith’s music stuff, ranging from the Wild Wild West soundtrack, work for Hitch and a bunch of different feature films, as well as All of Us, the TV show that Overbrook produced. Will and his partner James Lassiter are two of the smarter people I’ve met in the business. You can’t help but learn a lot from them in terms of creating relevant, entertaining content spanning such areas as music, TV and features. I got to connect with a lot of talented people, great creative minds and independent producers.

At Southpaw, we handled career management for some great artists, including Boyz II Men and Janet Jackson. During my tenure at Paisley Park, I worked for Prince and we released a Prince album as well as projects from George Clinton and Mavis Staples.

SHOOT: I trust that you plan on tapping into your entertainment industry connections for projects at Hill Holliday.

Dukakis: Most definitely. I’m looking forward to working with some of the independent producers I’ve come to know–and many of them have come to regard new forms of content on different platforms as important creatively and to their business. My music industry connections will also help our content efforts at Hill Holliday. Peripherally I’ll also be involved with helping our creative people in commercials connect with new and different bands and musicians.

SHOOT: What about accessing talent and resources from the commercialmaking community for your branded entertainment projects?

Dukakis: Absolutely. For one, some of these commercial houses represent not only great commercial directors but also great feature and TV directors who are more and more becoming involved in doing interesting things on the web. Directors from all over have diversified and expanded their view of what is interesting. It all come down to us putting together the right talent for the right project. You  have to be very flexible and recognize that there is not one model that fits everything. You have to be prepared to tap into varied sources.

SHOOT: What about business models? Production companies that traditionally have been in a work-for-hire situation for commercials now see the opportunity to have an equity stake in content. How do you see the landscape evolving?

Dukakis: It’s kind of like the wild, wild West right now. People are concerned about setting precedents in terms of who owns what and thus tend to be a little careful about things. I think in the long run these things will work themselves out.

SHOOT: Has the Writers Guild strike had an impact on what you’re trying to do at Hill Holliday and on the branded entertainment space in general?

Dukakis: The strike has a negative impact overall. The only thing I’ll say, though, is that some of the effect might be positive in that so many more people are open do doing things because they’re not involved in TV and film production. In some small way, the strike may be hastening a path to the web. Advertisers are looking for different outlets.

SHOOT: Can you share some info about projects you have in the pipeline at Hill Holliday?

Dukakis: It’s too early for me to discuss that in detail. We have some exciting branded entertainment projects in the works that will be released this year. Some of it is Internet-based, some is longer form entertainment.

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