New Position: Vice president, creative services, Dutcher Group, Tampa. Previous Position: Associate creative director, Dutcher Group, Tampa
By Times Staff Writer
Published July 14, 2003
With more than 50 industry awards for creative efforts in advertising, George Zwierko has no plans to give up brainstorming ideas for certain clients. But as the newly appointed vice president of creative services for the Dutcher Group, he now also is responsible for a staff of five or more other creative people.
"Scheduling gets a little difficult and becomes a juggling act," he said. "I'm wearing more hats."
Zwierko joined the Dutcher Group six years ago as a senior art director. He has been with other advertising and marketing agencies for the past nine years in the Tampa Bay area, including Ausec & Cheney Group, Ellis & Diaz and Parag & Co. He estimates he has been in the advertising industry here, in New York City and in Europe, for more than 20 years.
In his new role with Dutcher, Zwierko will oversee the financial aspects of the company's accounts as well as continue to work creatively for the clients he had before the promotion.
A full-service marketing, advertising and public relations firm, the Dutcher Group serves regional and national clients including Georgia-Pacific, Bright House Networks and RoadRunner.
Zwierko got interested in advertising as a teenager. While attending a magnet high school in New York City, he had a chance to work in advertising, right on Madison Avenue, the fulcrum of the advertising industry. "You can't beat that," he said. "I was 16."
When Zwierko saw his first print ad in Women's Wear Daily, he was hooked. "At 16, I thought this was pretty cool," he said.
He went on to study at the Pratt Institute of Art and Design in Brooklyn, earning a bachelor's degree in 1988. He then joined the Army and served in Germany from 1988 to 1991 where he also had a chance to create ads for the Army and later, after his discharge, for the Department of Defense.
He left Germany and relocated to Tampa with his wife in 1994.
Growing up, Zwierko said he envisioned becoming an illustrator or artist. One key benefit of working in advertising, Zwierko said, is "I didn't have to make a living as a starving artist."
Zwierko said he is intrigued not only by the creative elements of advertising but by the persuasive aspects.
"It is the challenge of being able to create something that is going to motivate someone else - the customer," he said. As an advertising account executive, Zwierko said he gets to "create an ad and put together a concept that will make a consumer aware of a particular brand. To me, that is interesting."
Over the past nine years, he has won, both individually and as part of ad account teams, more than 50 Addy Awards from local, regional and national advertising councils. Locally, Zwierko recently won two Telly Awards for a series of Time Warner cable TV spots.
He has also ventured, somewhat indirectly, into filmmaking. He and his wife, Martha Bone, a producer for WUSF-Ch. 16, made a 10-minute "mockumentary" film about the TV character of Darrin Stevens from the 1960s TV series Bewitched. The film was made to open the annual local Addy Awards show, but it proved so popular that it has since been entered into film festivals in Tampa, Orlando and Atlanta, Zwierko said.
Now 36, Zwierko and his wife live in the Seminole Heights area of Tampa. He has an 11-year-old daughter.
