Spiro and Waites

Call it the right mixture of youthful talent and years of experience, technical know-how and conceptual flair -- or a May to December partnership that just works. Whatever you want to call it, there has to be something powerful in the dynamic duo behind Spiro & Waites Advertising and Marketing.

Perhaps Bill Waites can best sum up his professional relationship with Chris Spiro. "The glove and hand have come together," he says. "We now have the velvet fist."

The Big League

Bill Waites, partner and co-creative director of the agency, began his career in the 1960s working in the advertising department of Proctor & Gamble. He soon sought a more creative challenge and became a copywriter at Griswold-Eshleman Advertising in Cleveland, Ohio. In the years that followed, Waites continued to rise in the advertising world, working for Young and Rubicam as associate creative director in New York, creative director in Detroit, national creative director in Australia, executive creative director in Chicago and creative director of Young and Rubicam's direct marketing subsidiary, Stone & Adler.

Through his extensive national experience, Waites worked with several accounts in the fields of tourism, the automotive industry, package goods and retail. He racked up several national awards for his work.

During that time he also began to take his family for vacations to Sanibel, where he developed a love of Southwest Florida. After eight more years with the Ogilvy & Mather in Chicago, Waites retired in 1989 and moved to Southwest Florida permanently. But he soon found he wanted to create again, and he formed Hurryup & Waites, an independent creative service for local advertisers.

Spiro's Story

"My family says I have printing ink running through my blood," laughs Chris Spiro, the younger half of the duo.

Printing was his family's business for three generations, and the work fascinated the young Chris Spiro from the time he was in grade school in Pensacola. During his teen years, the Spiro family moved to Cape Coral and opened a print shop. As Chris grew with the community -- he was very involved with sports at Cape Coral High School -- his experience in the print shop also did.

After attending the University of Florida, Spiro was lured back to his hometown, where he worked as creative director with Imagery Advertising. After working with numerous other local agencies and partnerships, he decided to strike it out on his own and formed The Spiro Group Inc., where he gained experience on the conceptual side of the advertising and marketing scene.

Hand Meets Glove

Spiro said he had heard of Bill Waites through marketing materials sent to his agency. Waites' resume impressed him, to say the least. "I was totally and completely intimidated," he says. "I mean, talk about a heavy hitter! He was way out of my league."

But Waites later asked Spiro to help him with a volunteer project through the American Advertising Federation for Drug Free Lee County. "I was trained in an environment where no one person did it all," Waites says. "You worked as a team. Copy and art, hitching on each other's ideas, going back and forth over what would work best, all toward the goal of creating the best possible advertising. I figured Chris was the guy who could partner with me that way on the project."

The collaboration sparked a professional team, and the two formed Spiro & Waites in early 1994. The combination has proven fulfilling to both partners - Waites' international career experience compliments Spiro's local connections and know-how. "It was a nice match of local-regional and national-international experience," Waites says.

The new company quickly grew from a staff of three or four to a present day staff of a dozen, including senior account executive and marketing director Michael Brennand, senior art director Thomas Allen, media director Gregory Weichert and client services director and public relations specialist Steve Nance. "It's not just Chris and Bill," says Spiro. "It's the people behind Chris and Bill."

In May the Spiro & Waites welcomed associate creative director Steve Martin as a third partner of the agency. Martin, who has a fine art and graphic design background, worked for the Creative Recognition Company in Minneapolis, Minn., before moving to Florida in 1995. He became art director for Firestone Advertising and then opened his own design firm, Spencer and Martin. He merged his company with Spiro & Waites in 1995. "He is one of the strongest creative minds in the market," Waites says.

In year five of operation, Waites and Spiro say they have learned to feel somewhat more settled in their niche. "We've gotten past the five-year mark," says Spiro.

The agency has some of the area's biggest accounts, including the Bell Tower Shops, Juicy Lucy's, Roetzel & Andress, the Florida Everblades, Cape Coral Hospital and the City of Cape Coral. They also have several national accounts, for example a spicy $1.2 million deal with salsa company Laredo & Lefty's Foods. The company chose Spiro & Waites over big-city firms in San Francisco and New York.

Creative Juices Flowing

So just what has been the magic formula for success? How does Spiro & Waites come up with those great images and ideas?

"It's more art than science," says Waites. "It's more of a discipline."

Looking around the Spiro & Waites office, tucked quietly on the upstairs floor of a complex off of College Parkway in South Fort Myers, it's not hard to sense the currents of creative energy that spark some of the ideas. The lobby is filled with wall-to-wall plaques, awards collected over the years.

Spiro's office is filled with advertising poster boards, pictures and images. Across from his desk is a mini-basketball hoop -- he says he occasionally plays a round for inspiration. Waites' office is filled with Aboriginal art, collected from his time in Australia. It's more of a quiet place, where the artwork invites contemplation.

Throughout the rest of the second-floor suite are the busy offices of the Spiro & Waites staff. Signs from ad campaigns are found tucked around corners and hanging over computers. The agency does much of advertisement production through its in-house staff, Spiro says. The result is quality control over the client's end product. "They can go to New York and pay $500 and hour and they won't get any better than our agency," Waites says.

But maybe Spiro & Waites' best creative attribute is attitude. Waites explains he asks three questions of every job: "can we have fun?", "can we make money?" and "can we do the kind of work we can gain other clients with?" He says he likes to be able to answer at least two of the questions in the affirmative.

For many accounts, the company uses the idea of S.W.I.M., or Spiro & Waites Image Management.