Helayne Spivack is no stranger to the world of large advertising agencies. She has held top creative posts at Young & Rubicam, New York, Ammirati Puris Lintas (now Lowe Lintas & Partners), New York, and J. Walter Thompson, New York. She has earned a slew of awards for her copywriting, including 13 Clios, numerous awards at The One Show, and Cannes Lions.
Although she has a big-agency pedigree, Spivack recently changed speeds and joined boutique firm Artustry Partnership, New York, as a creative partner. Her new shop’s business model is based more on the production company way of doing business than on the traditional, large advertising agency approachaand that suits Spivack just fine. Artustry was launched in ’98 by director Bob Giraldi, of bicoastal Giraldi/Suarez Productions; David Sklaver, the former president of now defunct Wells Rich Greene BDDP; and Bill Perna, then executive producer of Voyeur Films, a now shuttered satellite of Giraldi Suarez. (Perna is now head of DCODE, a New York-based firm offering strategic planning, creative, production of commercials, and emerging media ad forms, as well as media buying for agencies and advertisers. The new venture is part of iNTELEFILM, the publicly-traded, Minneapolis-headquartered firm that holds significant interests in the spot production world; SHOOT, 5/19/00).
Spivack, who came on board July 1, is pleased with her new role, and with her new place of business. She says that big-agency creative directors all share the same frustrations, that they all hit "the same wall. That wall is the flexibility that’s demanded by clients, and the inflexibilities of the organizations [they] work for," she explains. "It’s very difficult to work within [that] structure."
Artustry, with the exception of Spivack, Sklaver and creative partner Bob Giraldi, doesn’t have creatives on staff. Unlike traditional full-service ad agencies, the hybrid shop primarily hires copywriters, art directors, planners, and other personnel on a freelance basis. And the company works across all mediaaincluding TV, print, direct response, corporate identity and Web-based solutions. "The talent I’ve met over the years is the same talent I can draw on now," says Spivack. "I know that while they’re working for us, they may also be working for some other people. But all we care about is, ‘Are you the right person for the job and will you deliver?’ And they do."
Spivack points out that the image of the freelancer has changed over the years. "When I started out, and someone talked about freelancers, they were [seen as] the failed people who couldn’t get a job on staff," she explains. "These days, some of the best talent is floating out there.
"What freelancers love is coming in and working with people who want to get it done," continues Spivack. "It’s more of a collaboration, as opposed to at the big agencies where you get big meetings. You have people on staff that may not be perfectly suited to a piece of business because the good writers are tied up on other accounts, so for casting they’ll put in someone who’ll fill the room."
Spivack says that at Artustry, each client’s needs are considered on a case-by-case basis, and then talent is brought in that is suited to the individual project. "Here, David Sklaver and myself and Bob Giraldi sit down with our clients," she notes. "We first see what they need and we build the correct teams. There’s a lot less second-guessing. … And [the clients] know that what we’re focused on is the task at hand. There’s no hidden agenda. It’s a freer way of working."
Historically, Spivack says, as "clients got more and more successful, and built [their own] structures, agencies restructured themselves to match those levels. You had a junior working with a junior and a senior working with a senior, all the way up and down along the line. You’d get a phyllo dough organization with layers and layers and layers."
Because of this set-up, wheels can move slowly at big agencies, according to Spivack. In today’s hyper-fast world, many clients are looking for agencies that work quickly, and Spivack says Artustry’s flexibility allows it to service such clients, since there’s no bureaucracy to slow things down.
Although she doesn’t have the support staff she would have at a big company, Spivack doesn’t seem to mind. "You do it yourself. When you do it yourself there are fewer people to blame," she says. Also, because Artustry is smallait has a staff of sixacommunication is simple and direct. "This morning I walked into David’s office and said, ‘What’s doing?’ and in seven minutes, without status reports, everybody knows what’s going on at the same time," she declares.
Artustry’s recent projects include creating branding and corporate identity for Unifi Network, an independent consulting company being formed by PricewaterhouseCoopers; revamping a Web site for Freelance.com; and creating a branding campaign for Disney Televentures for Americast Cable. The Disney work, which includes the spot "Great TV Nights," was directed and art directed by Giraldi. Some of Artustry’s previous work includes a sales film for Trump Towers, directed by freelance helmer Thomas Mignone, and an in-house film for Texaco.
What truly distinguishes Artustry from other outfits that use freelancers is the heavyweight partners who run the company. Sklaver has impressive agency credentials, while Giraldi is a director who continues to helm spots for clients such as Chevrolet and Budweiser; he also occasionally directs music videos, most recently for Will Smith.
Spivack has been in advertising since ’76. Before getting into the business, she studied fashion design and illustration at the Parsons School of Design, New York. She worked in the fashion industry for eight months before deciding it wasn’t for her, and then decided to study acting for three years.
Around that time, she read and was intrigued by Jerry Della Femina’s ’70 book on the ad industry, From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor. When she saw that now defunct Della Femina Travisano & Partners had an opening, she applied for and got a job as a secretary to the creative director.
Spivack went on to work at now shuttered Ally & Gargano for 10 years, where she worked her way up from junior writer to associate creative director. She moved to Ammirati Puris Lintas, first as associate creative director, then as chief creative officer for three years, before joining the now shuttered New York office of San Francisco-headquartered Hal Riney & Partners (now Publicis & Hal Riney), to serve as creative director. Her next stop was at Young & Rubicam, New York, where she held the position of chief creative officer. Moving to Y&R was quite a change for Spivack, who says, "I went from a creative department of six people to a creative department of one hundred seventy-nine, including production."
She then returned to Ammirati, but this time to serve as creative director. Three years later, she moved to JWT, where she was worldwide creative director/chief creative director. She left the company in ’97, and last year filed a lawsuit against Thompson for damages, charging the agency with defamation and gender discrimination; earlier this year, a jury dismissed her claims.
After leaving JWT, Spivack formed HRS Consulting, where she did work for a number of agencies, including Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos, Boston; Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer/Euro RSCG, New York; and Strawberry Fog, Amsterdam.
Does she think the agency will look to Bob Giraldi’s production companiesaGiraldi Suarez and GSP4afor directors? "Not necessarily. What we look for is the best person [for the job]," states Spivack, adding that all she looks for in a director is "someone who’s really good." She points out that now we have more commercial directors than ever. "There are over ten thousand," she notes. "It is really hard to keep up. You do look for something fresh, and you do want something different."
"There are very few Giraldis and [Joe] Pytkas [of Venice, Calif.-based PYTKA] and [Leslie] Dektors [he directs out of Dektor Film, Hollywood]," Spivack observes. "There are so many young people out there. What you look for is something you haven’t seen before. But you also have to have a decent production company behind them. Production companies are really important because you end up trusting them."
