By: Sara Wolde
Matthew Eck’s path to the advertising industry did not begin in an agency conference room. It began with fine art and moved through events, hospitality and, eventually, media and advertising. That unconventional route helped shape his belief that successful advertising involves more than simply purchasing space or identifying an audience. It also requires understanding context, presentation and the people behind a campaign.
Those ideas ultimately led Eck to create The Ad Concierge,T an advertising company built around a more personal approach to planning and placing media.
“I think all of those experiences connect more than they might seem to on paper,” Eck said. “Fine art taught me how to think visually, how to communicate an idea, and how important context is.”
Events added another dimension, teaching him how to manage numerous moving parts while making the final experience appear seamless. Hospitality, meanwhile, left him with a lesson he has carried into advertising: people often remember how they were treated as clearly as they remember what they purchased.
When Eck entered advertising, those experiences influenced how he viewed campaigns. Rather than looking at media placement in isolation, he found himself considering the environment surrounding an advertisement, the creative material, the intended audience and the overall experience.
“Advertising brought all of that together for me,” he said.
The approach became the foundation for The Ad Concierge. Eck wanted to apply some of the principles associated with hospitality and design “attention, accessibility and service” to an industry that he believes can sometimes become unnecessarily complicated.
A client working with a traditional agency may interact with account executives, planners, buyers, vendors, creative departments and reporting teams before a campaign reaches the public. Eck saw an opportunity to simplify that process.
At The Ad Concierge, clients have a central point of contact who can help identify objectives, evaluate markets and media, develop a campaign, coordinate placement and manage reporting.
“For me, white glove does not mean making advertising feel expensive or exclusive,” Eck said. “It means being accessible, paying attention, answering the phone, and taking ownership of the campaign.”
That emphasis on personal service comes at a time when much of advertising is moving in another direction technologically. Programmatic media buying, sophisticated audience data, automation and artificial intelligence are increasingly part of the industry’s toolkit.
Eck is not resistant to those developments. He sees technology as valuable and uses it where appropriate. But he also believes greater access to technology makes human judgment more important rather than less.
“Technology doesn’t know a client the way a person does,” he said.
Understanding that client, Eck argues, means looking beyond whether an audience can technically be reached. It requires understanding why a company is advertising, what it wants to accomplish, what it can realistically spend and which form of advertising makes sense for its particular goals.
The answer can vary dramatically.
For one campaign, it might be a Times Square billboard. Another could call for Connected TV, streaming audio, digital display, local out-of-home advertising or a combination of several channels. In some cases, Eck said, good judgment means advising a client not to spend money on a particular opportunity.
“That judgment comes from experience and from actually listening,” he said.
Eck has worked across formats ranging from Times Square and digital out-of-home advertising to Connected TV, streaming audio, display and experiential campaigns. That range has reinforced another lesson: visibility alone does not ensure that an advertisement will be remembered.
“You cannot force people to care about an advertisement,” Eck said.
Even in Times Square, where some of the world’s most recognizable advertising screens surround millions of visitors, scale is only one part of the equation. A large logo on a large screen may attract attention, but Eck believes memorable campaigns depend on a combination of message, timing, placement and creative execution.
Different media also perform different jobs. Connected TV can provide room for storytelling. Streaming audio can reach consumers in another environment. Digital advertising can reinforce a message after an initial exposure. Out-of-home advertising can create visibility and scale, while experiential campaigns allow audiences to participate directly.
“The best campaigns understand what each medium is good at and make those pieces work together,” Eck said.
That philosophy reflects Eck’s fine-art roots as much as his advertising experience. He describes media as something more than inventory, with composition, environment and context playing roles in how a message is received.
As The Ad Concierge grows, Eck says his challenge will be maintaining the personal approach that inspired the company while expanding its capabilities. His vision is eventually to have multiple “Concierges” who can provide clients with access to a broad range of media while preserving the direct relationships associated with a boutique business.
Whether someone wants national exposure, a presence in Times Square or advertising focused on a single neighborhood, Eck wants the process to begin with the same question: What is actually worth doing?
“There are plenty of companies that can sell advertising,” he said. “I want The Ad Concierge to be the company people trust to help them figure out what is actually worth doing.”
About Matthew Eck and The Ad Concierge
Matthew Eck is the founder of The Ad Concierge, an advertising company working across out-of-home and digital media, including Times Square placements, Connected TV, streaming audio, digital display and experiential advertising. More information about Matthew Eck and The Ad Concierge can be found at The Ad Concierge website.
