By JAIRED CROFUT
Staff Writer
As the creative director for Bartley & Dick, an advertisement agency located in mid-town Manhattan, Scott Bartley, 41, is directly responsible for designing and developing concepts behind advertising campaigns for such high clientele as BBC America and Epic Movie Network, a company currently owned by MTV.
“His creative direction drives this firm” said Rick Biolsi, who is co-owner of the agency and a longtime friend.
A lot of the advertisements produced by the firm run on television and radio. In the past Bartley & Dick have run campaigns and commercials for programs such as Doctor Who and Top Gear (television shows both run by BBC America), ABC’s Dancing with the Stars and, of course, the BBC World News.
“We’ve also developed campaigns for New York University, Timberland, Western Union, Miller Brewing Company, The New York Times” said Bartley.
But what is it exactly that has made this company unique in a sea swarming with dozens of similar agencies in direct competition?
Originally from Holbrook Long Island, Bartley always dreamed of starting his own business with childhood friend Biolsi.
Making it in New York is exactly what Bartley and Biolsi have aspired to do. It is a commonly known fact that New York City is host to some of the best advertising agencies in the world.
“We always had this thought that if we were going to make it to the top we would do it in New York” Bartley said.
“Part of it was the challenge of starting a business In Manhattan, if you can do that, you can do anything” said Biolsi.
However, the road to success has not always been an easy one. For Bartley it has taken a lot of hard earned work. A typical day for Bartley might begin at 10 a.m. and run until midnight.
Alongside numerous late nights spent at the office, Bartley has often attributed much of his success to the networking and contacts he made during his college years.
In retrospect, it almost seems hard to believe but once upon a time, Bartley started out as a lowly intern working for six weeks without pay. After college, the experience he gained at his internship alongside the connections he made at Saint Rose became invaluable to him. He soon landed an interview at Winstanley Lennox Mass, where another Saint Rose graduate, Brian Billow currently a director at Hungry Man, interviewed him for a position.
For Bartley, this was his first break into the industry and a good start to getting his feet wet.
“It was total networking, we were friends at Saint Rose” said Bartley about Billow when looking back at his time at Winstanley Lennox Mass. However, the Saint Rose connections would soon help him to launch his company into further success years later, after he’d already started Bartley & Dick in March of 2000.
In fact, one of the biggest connections of his career so far, which resulted in him working for BBC America, came from Saint Rose alumna Kelli Walsh Szluka.
Interestingly enough, Bartley’s professional relationship with Walsh began by him helping her to find a job in New York City. He had received a phone call from a friend working in Los Angeles who told him that a Saint Rose graduate was looking to move to New York City and needed help. Bartley, who has admitted he has a certain soft spot for the college, then arranged an interview with Walsh and the rest, as they say, is history.
The favor was later returned when Walsh became Bartley’s direct connection to one of the biggest media conglomerates in the world, the BBC. The two still keep in contact till this day.
“Scott is a terrific guy! And an inspiration to designers and small business owners like myself. Over the past three years we’ve not only developed a working relationship, but a great friendship! He’s a mentor and always there to give advice and have a good laugh,” Walsh said.
Although most of Bartley’s work is concerned with the advertising side of business, Bartley admits that graphic design is the core of what he does saying that, “Design is everything in my business. Perception and communication is what we do. We want our clients to stand apart from the crowd, be perceived a certain way and tell their story in a compelling and impactful fashion. Everything we do is thought out and designed.”
“I think Saint Rose has a really good design school” said Bartley. Interestingly enough, however, Bartley was originally considering studying design at Ohio University.
It was over 20 years ago that a young Scott Bartley was standing amidst a sea of college hopefuls looking over prospective schools at a college fair. Blame it on a simple twist of fate, but fortunately enough, that day Saint Rose was the only college in which there was no line.
For Bartley, what started out just as a childhood vision of working in the city, has become a dream come true. He said, “We always knew this is what we were going to do.”
