Season 1, Episode 2: VP/Creative Director, Tom Marguccio

This episode features our VP/Creative Director Tom Marguccio with host Lupe Dragon. 

Transcript

Tom Marguccio 0:00

Welcome to Coffee and Tea with SCG, a podcast from the industry experts at SCG Advertising and PR. We are a full-service woman-owned agency that offers advertising, public relations, recruitment, marketing, and association management. In this season, we'll be chatting with some members of our team about their specialties. So grab your coffee and your tea, and let's brew up a good conversation.

Lupe Dragon 0:29

In today's episode, we will be chatting with Tom Marguccio, our creative director at SCG Advertising and Public Relations. First question, Tom Do you prefer coffee or tea?

Tom Marguccio 0:42

Coffee. I like tea, but I prefer coffee.

Lupe Dragon 0:45

And how do you like your coffee?

Tom Marguccio 0:46

Uh light and sweet, like myself.

Lupe Dragon 0:50

Wonderful. On the first episode, I forgot to answer this, so I'm gonna answer now. I love both, but tea is my preference now because coffee gives me a lot of anxiety, and I already have enough throughout my daily life. So tea, some honey. I prefer like a chamomile, a green tea. Like that's more my vibe. Green tea if I really need the boost of energy, the antioxidants, so perfect blend for me.

Tom Marguccio 1:16

Tea's great. I just prefer coffee, but tea's great.

Lupe Dragon 1:18

But do you like spilling tea?

Tom Marguccio 1:19

Do I like what?

Lupe Dragon 1:20

Do you like spilling tea? Well, you know. All right, let's get started. You've been in the advertising business for more than half a century, Tommy. How did you get started?

Tom Marguccio 1:32

The route to how I got started is a podcast on its own. So I'll cut to the chase and I'll just tell you how it worked. August of 1968, I wound up with a job at the S. Klein Department stores in their advertising production department. It was a basic, you know, entry-level position. But I, you know, it was good because I learned about, you know, I had to work with the art department, I had to work with the copy people, I had to make sure ads were back and forth. So I started to learn the process. It wasn't what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a creative guy, but I didn't have a portfolio. So I was happy to get this job. And I made friends with a wonderful woman named Lucille. She was the copy chief. And so I would talk to her and she would fill my head with these great stories about advertising, because she worked for agencies for years before she worked at S. Klein, and she would just tell me about when they would work for these pitches, how many hours they would work, but then how they would celebrate if they got the account. And it was just everything I thought advertising was going to be, so I was thrilled. One day I walk into Lucille, as I did all the time, to pick up some copy, and she looks at me and she says, Tom, I have a question for you. I said, What's that, Lucille? She says, How would you like to work for a real advertising agency? And I said, Are you kidding me? Wow, what do I have to do? Who do I have to kill? I'll I'll do anything you want. And she said, uh, nah. She says, I have a friend, Claire Bauman, who runs a small fashion ad agency, Claire Advertising, and they're looking for a, you know, production trainee, and et cetera. And again, I wanted to be a creative guy, but I didn't have a portfolio. But what I really wanted was to at least get in. I wanted to get into real advertising. So I went over, I met my future boss, Chuck Sonera. He interviewed me, hired me, and next thing you know, I'm working at Clare Advertising. And it was just, I was there for six years, and this woman, a mensa genius, legitimate mensa genius, was a brilliant advertising person, great account exec, good creative mind, and just a wonderful, wonderful woman. And I and I learned a lot in my in my six years there. It was a great experience. How lucky was I to have that for a first job. Second job, but really first job, you know.

Lupe Dragon 3:26

And the nice stepping stone into what you're doing now. So it gave you a nice platform to start on.

Tom Marguccio 3:32

Absolutely, because there were there were the creative people there were great, and they knew that I was I was 20. I was gotn't even been to college yet. I was 20, so I was a kid and they knew how I wanted to be creative, so they helped me. I would go in the back at lunchtime and read all the trades and work on ideas, and I would run into the creative Milton, I did this idea. Do you like this? You know? And they were great. They they taught me and and they were just it was just a a really wonderful six years. Wonderful six years.

Lupe Dragon 3:58

That's amazing. So since your first job or second job, we're not counting. Um what is the biggest change you've seen in the ad industry?

Tom Marguccio 4:08

Well, for me, because I've been around so long, the the biggest change was when I started, don't forget, no computers, no phones, no faxes, no nothing, no nothing. We did concepts on tissue pads, and then we typed copy on a you know typewriter. And then when you in order to produce the ad, you had to take that copy and send it to a place called a typographer who would set the type for you because everything was built on illustration board. It was what we called a mechanical, where you would put the headline and the and the copy and the photo and everything else. So it was it was an incredibly, I think about it now, it was a long process. Somehow we did it quickly, but it was a long process because you had to do a rough tissue layout. And once the creative director decided that was okay, then it went to the comp artist who really comped it up nicely to show the client. And then you type the copy. And then when everything was approved, you had to send it out. You had to make this mechanical, get the mechanical approved, you had to send it out, and you weren't done because you had to make engravings. Four-color engravings for magazines, which were four copper plates with red, yellow, blue, and black plates, because it was four-color process printing. And it was just an incredible process. So for me to go from that, which is what I grew up with, what I was used to, to all of a sudden in 1990, when when I first came to what was Cherenson, you know, now SCG, was incredible because we had these little, little Macintosh computers. And wait a minute, I can see the headline on the computer, and I can change the typeface to see which font I like better. And it was just an amazing thing. So for me, that was probably the biggest change going from that, you know, simple paper and here it is, and you gotta do this, to this incredible, you know, computer revolution was just unbelievable for me. I mean, you know, past that has been the change from all the traditional media to the digital, etc. But even larger to me, more impactful to me, was that change from the way we used to do things to being able to do everything on this computer and just see things so quickly, you know? It was just incredible.

Lupe Dragon 6:01

Yeah, it's faster, and a lot of the products that we use now for that type of work, like Adobe, Premiere, InDesign. How much more efficiently did it and and how much faster did it make your work?

Tom Marguccio 6:15

Well, you know what's funny? Because I told I told Lee Cherenson, God love him, our boss years ago, uh, he was in a hurry for a concept. And I said, All right, Lee, but I gotta I gotta work out the concept. And he said to me, But Tommy, uh you have a computer. You know, we were laughing, and I said, Yeah, but I still have to do the concept. So what's great is now, and I I still concept the same way I did years ago, you know, a pad, I'll write some stuff down, then I go right to the computer and blah, blah, blah. You still need the time to concept it and write it.

Lupe Dragon 6:40

Brainstorm.

Tom Marguccio 6:41

Exactly. You need to you need that time to do it, which sometimes like that, sometimes it takes a little longer. So then what happens is you still do that. But then when you get onto the computer, it's just so much faster. And again, the the more you do it, the more you work on it, you know, the better you become using that software. So it does fly. And again, I just love working with the computer because it gives you so many options. I mean, quickly. You know, again, once I have the concept down, then I can see maybe I can make that photo a little smaller and I can see, and then if I don't like it, Command Z and it's back to where it was. So there's a lot of that that I really like. But but the concepting process still still takes time. Still takes time.

Lupe Dragon 7:17

Yeah, I mean, you need time to come up with these great ideas, which following up on that, during the past fifty odd or some years as you've been in the ad industry, you've come up with a lot of ideas. Where do they come from and how do you know if they're good?

Tom Marguccio 7:30

I I there's certain things. I believe some people are born to do certain things, and there's no doubt in my mind, I was born to do this because I wanted to do it since I was a kid in the eighth grade, you know. So that's just a gift that I've been blessed with, and and I think all creative people are just blessed with that gift. You know, the process is you get creative brief from the account team with all the information about whatever it is you're writing the ad for, you know, and it's demographics and its target audience and and what's the purpose of this ad, and what are we doing, and then you sit there and as I said, you concept, right? So you come up with concepts and everything else. I just know it's good when I'm writing and I'm either struggling or I get it right away, and I go, that's it. Yeah, that's it, that's good. You know, so so but there's there's three parts to it being good, you know. So it's I know it's good, and I always tell my clients, I've been telling my clients for 50 odd years, I'll never give you a concept I don't like. I'll never give you a concept I'm settling for. It doesn't mean you have to like it, and I understand that, but you'll never get anything from me that's not good. So my first attempt, I know it's good when it's done, okay, boom. Then I know what's good when the client likes it and the client gets it. Then, well, that's good. That's good number two. Number three, and the best good is when the ad gets response. When when the client says, Hey, oh man, we've had so much reaction to this or that or whatever. We increase sales, we increase leads, we increase whatever the deal is, then you know what's good. But just that initial doing it, I think it's also from years of experience, too. You can just because don't forget, you know, part of my job is it's is I've got to look at creative, not only that I do, but that other people do, right? So I have to be a good judge of creative. I have to know what good creative is. So all of that is part of the process. And and um it's just a gift, luck, whatever you want to call it, that I just uh figure out this is pretty good, you know?

Lupe Dragon 9:09

Yeah, and I think it's just really important in general is that if you don't feel confident in that piece, there's no reason to give it to a client.

Tom Marguccio 9:17

And and I couldn't sell it. I c I could not sell it to a client if I didn't believe in it, because that's just it's just not right. So I yeah, exactly. That's a good point. I have to really, really like and believe in what I'm showing, or I I I couldn't do that. I couldn't sell it. No way.

Lupe Dragon 9:31

No way, Jose. So, Tommy, we know that you love telling stories. What is your most amusing story that has ever happened in your career in advertising?

Tom Marguccio 9:42

Amusing. Oh, this geez, this this so many, you know. Not so much amusing, but interesting. While at Claire Advertising, we did some work for Chanel. And yeah, and one of the jobs we did for them was a brochure. It was about four inches by three inches small that they were gonna put, I think, in perfume bottles or handbags or whatever. It was all just about Chanel. And what we did was the way it was designed by the creative director, he wanted the front and back cover to be full bleed silver metallic with the Chanel logo popping out in white. That's silver metallic ink, it just looked gorgeous. But this was in like 1970, and in 1970, printing with any kind of metallic inks is a little difficult, even then. You know, it was just like in its infancy. So we have this job for Chanel, and here's the big day. The printer's on his way, he's gonna deliver these 5,000 Chanel brochures. So they they arrive in the office, and I'm standing there, me and Claire, the boss, Dolores, her assistant, Charles, the production manager who's responsible for the quality.

Lupe Dragon 10:43

Everyone.

Tom Marguccio 10:44

They're all standing there and boxes get opened. We gotta see this. And so printers are notorious, by the way, for putting the best examples, the best samples on top of the box. So, you know. So, yeah. First couple came out, and oh, they were beautiful, you know, but then all of a sudden, pulling out samples that have all these what we call hickeys, all these white dots, because the the printing press picks up the fibers from the paper and mixes with the water, and instead of getting a full bleed, you get dots all over the place. Terrible.

Lupe Dragon 11:09

Quite a word for that.

Tom Marguccio 11:10

Yeah, it's but it's that's an industry word, by the way. It's an industry word.

Lupe Dragon 11:14

But it makes sense that it makes sense. So you have all these dots all over, and then what happens next?

Tom Marguccio 11:21

People start having heart attacks cause what the hell is this? We've got five thousand. So now we're looking through them, and just a quick look, Claire, my boss, can tell there's too many of these with these hickeys on them and not enough good ones. So she looked at me and she said, Tommy, I I need you to do me a favor. I said, What do we want, Claire? You know, what do you need? She goes, Well, you've been here a couple of years now, and in that time I can tell you got a pretty good eye for printing around. Oh, thank you, Claire. You know, I got the compliment because then here comes the news, you know. And I said, Well, what do you need? She says, Well, I need you to take all 5,000 of these brochures, and I need you to go through them, and I need you to give me uh whatever you think are absolutely good that we can give to the client. I need to make and make another pile that these may maybe maybe these are and another pile of these are going in the garbage. I said, Great. I said, when do you need me to do this? She says, tonight. And this was four o'clock. So I said, All right, boss, whatever you need, you know. So I went in the conference room and started going through all these brochures. I ordered Chinese food at 7 o'clock.

Lupe Dragon 12:19

There you go.

Tom Marguccio 12:20

Ran down and got coffee at midnight, and I finished at 5 o'clock in the morning. I had the conference room all full of boxes of these are good, these are maybe, and these are you throw them out. So finally at 5 o'clock in the morning, I went in the back and we have it, we had a sofa in the back, so I went in the back and I passed out. Claire woke me up at 8 o'clock with coffee in a buttered roll. She says, What did you do? And I said, Well, I was here all night doing this. And we went into the conference room and I said, I'm sorry about the mess. She says, No, no, no, it's okay. But what she said was, this is great. And I learned from her a very, very important thing that all advertising people should do, and that's never lie to the client. She had called Chanel right away and said, We had a problem with the printing, but here's what we're doing. And she said, I have my one of my production men looking through everything. I should have anywhere from several hundred to maybe a thousand or so that I can give you tomorrow. And I already had spoken to the printer, we're already getting it taken care of. He's gonna reprint them, et cetera, et cetera. And because she didn't lie, Chanel was thrilled. Perfect. They were happy that she was honest, they were happy that we were doing this. So Claire was thrilled when you know she came in and I had done all this, and then she said to me, You worked enough, go home, take the rest of the day off. Gee, thanks, you know. I did. And then great. And again, Chanel was happy, the reprint came in, and luckily that that batch was great. So everything was fine. And then two weeks later, she gave me a trip to Jamaica as a as a reward. Yeah, we got uh we got a we got a gift from uh Jamaica Tourist Board because we used the photo of Jamaica in an ad for another one of our clients, and they were so thrilled.

Lupe Dragon 13:53

That's crazy.

Tom Marguccio 13:53

They gave us a week in Jamaica, and Claire gave it to me. And I said to her, I said, I said, This is great, but I I I I can't afford the airline. I can't I can't, but I was 20, you know. She said, Tommy, you think I'm not gonna give you the airline tickets to I mean, she was just wonderful, you know. So she did that, paid my college, bought me speakers because she knew it was an audio file. She was because she was tough, and she didn't fire me when I made a $30,000 mistake. So told me I never made that mistake again. But in the early 70s, $30,000 was a lot of money. I mean, it's a lot of money today, but it was really a lot of money then, and she didn't fire me. She was just, again, just a wonderful, brilliant woman who taught me so much. Everything she taught me, I'm still using to this day. She taught me that much.

Lupe Dragon 14:34

So I think the biggest lesson you can learn from the story is offer a resolution to uh the client and don't lie to them. Don't ever lie to them.

Tom Marguccio 14:42

Never, never. Just listen, problems happen, this is what happened, and this is what we're doing to resolve the problem. And that's exactly what Claire did. There was no there wasn't even a moment's hesitation. It was I gotta call the client, let me tell them what's going on, boom.

Lupe Dragon 14:53

I mean, SCG stands for Success Communications Group, and the one thing that we're very good at is communicating with our clients when we need something.

Tom Marguccio 15:01

Yeah, no, absolutely. It's very it's it's important. I stress it all the time. It's very it's key. It's as important as anything else we do is communicate to the client.

Lupe Dragon 15:08

So absolutely, because if not, where would we be truly? We wouldn't be anywhere if we ghosted them. So out of business. Yeah, there you go. So our last question to close out the podcast is Tommy, what are some of your hobbies and passions outside of work? And if they intertwine with your work, elaborate on that and just let us know. Just let the class know.

Tom Marguccio 15:29

Well, my my two my two faves. I love music and I love sports, especially baseballs. And they I I do both of them. I was a drummer for years when I was younger. I have two sons, both of them are professional drummers, so it's wonderful because I go to their gigs, see their shows, and it's great because it keeps me on top of things musically. So that does help with work, you know, with videos or radio where you have to put music under. That certainly helps, you know, knowing what's going on, trends, music, who's this, who's that. But I also just love it because, you know, I love music, but it's my kids, so I like to go see them. So that's that. And then baseball being my other love. Uh I've been involved in Little League for over 40 years. And uh, about 17 years ago, I I co-founded a Challenger League for Little League, which is Challengers Little League's initiative to teach baseball to children with uh mental and physical capabil uh, you know, uh handicaps, I should say. And uh we've been doing that for 17 years. Every Sunday from April to June, middle of June, we go out and we play baseball with our kids. Most of them are uh they have autism, uh some have uh physical problems, but their parents are the most wonderful people in the world you've ever met, and uh it's just like the greatest thing I've ever done in my life because these people are so nice and they're so grateful. And I'm going, You're thanking me, I should be thanking you. This is terrific, you know. And and we have fun. I announce the game, so we get to see the kids, and I tease them and I tease the parents, and we just have a wonderful time, and so that's kept me going too, because I did my regular, you know, little league coaching, and I was a league president, and I was a district administrator, and I did all that stuff. But this challenger is without a doubt, you know, the most rewarding thing I've done. So that's what I do.

Lupe Dragon 17:02

And I'm guessing, like we said about music, knowing the levels and the volume and how to have it have a uh cathartic reaction when you're watching an ad or something, I'm sure is very important what you do, and also in something like what we do with the podcast, which fun fact, guys, Tommy does the intro and the outro for us, so you'll be very familiar. But even doing stuff like that, I see what you're saying because with podcasting, it's the same thing. I'm trying to find the levels that work to really convey what we're trying to get across. And I think that's really important.

Tom Marguccio 17:36

Yeah, a lot of time is trial and error, you know, especially if you're like years ago, if I'm in a studio doing a radio commercial and we want music under. Well, you have to pick the right music that goes with the flow of the spot. So if it's a very serious spot, the music should kind of carry that in a serious way. If it's uh fun, if you're having fun with the spot, there should be something, whatever. But it's not only the music, it's exactly what you said. It's finding that level. Because you can't have the voiceover be drowned out by the music. Exactly. Where he's now, you know, uh, and I'm talking like this, and the music is playing like you can't have that. And and by the same token, you know, you you can't have the music too low, or you're not gonna hear it, it's not you're not gonna get it, it's not gonna work. So so that's also important, too, is to have your ears, you have good ears, that you learn. And again, that's all trial and error, and it's all experience. It's all that you learned and you listen and you see, and you kind of learn what levels to do, because everyone's different, you know. Every single spot you do, podcast you do, commercial you do, it's all different from the respect of you know the uh the voiceover artist and how how loud or how soft he or she recorded, and then you gotta make everything work with that. So a good audio engineer is very valuable.

Lupe Dragon 18:43

Yeah, I think it's valuable to really take the things that you not only do in work, but the things that you do outside of work and find a way to continually educate yourself in those things. And like you said, like drumming or for me, like I play the guitar, I sing, so like my ears are trained to be listening to certain things like reverb and stuff like that. And again, when you're putting together an ad, you want to make sure that all those things come together, video ad or audio ad. And so yeah, I think all of those things are super important. And I also feel like I learned so much from you in this conversation.

Tom Marguccio 19:16

Well, you never stop learning.

Lupe Dragon 19:17

You never stop learning.

Tom Marguccio 19:18

I'm still learning every day. If you close your mind and think, well, I've learned everything I need to know about this, you're wrong. You have to keep that willingness to learn.

Lupe Dragon 19:27

Which is why I think like we provide such great things to our clients because we continually learn and grow and we implement new things. And again, like podcasting is such a new thing, and we started to do that for our clients and really be able to showcase that like this is a tool that you can use to really speak to people and get your message out there.

Tom Marguccio 19:48

Oh, absolutely, yeah.

Lupe Dragon 19:49

So, yeah, so thank you so much for being on the podcast Tom. No, thank you. It was great.

Tom Marguccio 19:52

Love it. Yeah.

Lupe Dragon 19:53

And we will see you guys next time on the Coffee and Tea with SCG podcast.

Tom Marguccio 20:02

Don't forget to subscribe whenever you listen to your podcast so you never miss an episode. And leave us a review. Until next time, keep those mugs filled and those ideas flowing.