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If you ever imagined that the talented Midwestern high school youngster who won fame and a big-money prize for a "25 Words or Less" contest would later grow up to run his own successful advertising company and win countless awards, you'd be right! And you would be thinking of Dick Commer -- winner of statewide fame and a $25 War Bond in the Omaha, Nebraska "Why the Nebraska Power Company Should Continue To Serve Our Community" essay contest -- who has gone on to even greater success in his present position as owner of The Ad Works in Westport.
Dick began his advertising career with a stint doing adverting sales and promotions at Long Island Newsday. Later he opened his first ad agency -- Dick Commer Advertising -- in Baldwin and later Dix Hills, Long Island. After moving to Westport in 1981, he served for three years as Promotions & Creative Services Manager and Public Relations Director at the Stamford Advocate and Greenwich Time. In 1985 he took the leap again and went out on his own with The Ad Works. "Copy that sings. Ideas that fly. Advertising that works," is the firm's slogan.
Being unaffiliated with a large advertising agency has allowed Dick the independence to carve out his own niche, which is consumer-oriented retail advertising. The Ad Works provides full service advertising, which includes designing print, radio and TV spots, sales brochures, catalogues, flyers, direct mail, sales letters, news releases, billboards -- even menus and slogans. You name it, in the field of local and regional advertising, Dick Commer can do it, or more accurately, has done it! He specializes in designing full-scale, highly customized advertising programs, which frequently entails research, making media "buys" and doing placements of ads which he conceptualizes and designs.
Clients have ranged from universities, hotels, restaurants, health and racket clubs, pest control firms and bus companies to clothing retailers, jewelry stores, car washes, home builders, and auto dealers and makers, to name just a few. He provides promotion and ad services for local and regional businesses, corporations, and professionals such as lawyers and doctors. While his clients' typical annual advertising budgets may run from $50,000 to just under a million, he at times handles smaller businesses, such as start-ups, on a project-by- project basis. Dick acknowledges that writing copy is his strong suit -- "what I have the most fun doing." He particularly enjoys the challenge of working with start-up businesses, designing every aspect of the company's image-building and advertising, from business card and letterheads to billboards and everything in between.
Besides widespread recognition, his work has received numerous awards from professional organizations in his field. He has received, among others, National Retail Merchants Association Awards, the Retail Reporting Bureau Awards, ANDY Award (conveyed by New York art directors), Fairfield County Ad Club Awards, the Northern New Jersey Advertising Club Award, the Long Island Ad Club Awards, and Type Directors Ad Club Award -- all "for creativity and effective advertising." When he's not planning, creating and designing prize-winning ad campaigns, Dick enjoys travel to the Southwestern U.S., classical music and theater, and collecting original comic art.
Asked about his career's worth of accolades, Dick will say, "But the biggest award I get is the reward of working with people and helping them with their advertising." Proving that once again, in 25 words or less, Dick Commer managed to say it all.
The Ad Works
4 Gorham Avenue
Westport, CT 06880
(203) 454-2388
www.DickCommer.com