Spike Lee Makes Deal for Ad Agency

Film director Spike Lee’s deal to create TV commercials for advertising agency DDB Needham is the latest partnership between Hollywood and Madison Avenue.

The deal, announced earlier this week, gives the director of the acclaimed 1989 film “Do the Right Thing” half-ownership of an agency to be called Spike/DDB. Needham gets a marquee name that can help it attract and retain clients.

Needham said that Lee, as creative director of the new agency, would develop commercials aimed at urban markets. Though Lee’s films deal with the black urban experience, Needham said the commercials would not specifically target African Americans.

Lisa Skilloff, president of Multicultural Marketing Resources in New York, said Lee would help Needham tap into urban culture, which has had a strong influence in music and fashion.

“Many of the trends that start there [rap music, for example] have entered the general market,” she said.

Advertisers increasingly are turning to Hollywood for help in reaching consumers. Big name film directors such as Quentin Tarantino have opened commercial production companies that work with ad agencies. Talent agency Creative Artists Agency shocked the ad world several years ago when it won the advertising business of Coca-Cola Co. CAA has since spun off its advertising operations.

Though advertising does not have the profit potential of a successful film, it allows Hollywood talent a quick way to pick up extra income.

Lee is no stranger to advertising, having directed commercials for Nike, Snapple and Taco Bell, among others. Needham said the deal allows Lee to continue to direct ads for non-Needham clients through his Brooklyn, N.Y., production company, 40 Acres and a Mule.

Lee did not respond to a written request for comment.

It wasn’t clear how much time Lee would devote to the new agency, given his career as a filmmaker and relationships with such advertisers as Nike, a client of the Portland agency Wieden & Kennedy. Needham said that among the agency’s new projects would be a commercial for Anheuser-Busch.

“This will not stop Spike from doing other things,” said Jo Muse, chairman of Muse Cordero Chen, a multicultural advertising agency in Los Angeles. “When Nike calls and wants him to do a really nice commercial, he’ll be gone.”

“You can’t look at Spike as a bona fide agency,” said Don Coleman of Coleman & Associates of Detroit, a black-owned agency whose clients include Chrysler, General Mills and Domino’s Pizza. “What they’ve got is a talented producer who will produce some commercials for them.”

Though Needham denied it, some black advertising executives saw the deal as an attempt by Needham to make inroads with black consumers--putting Spike/DDB in direct competition with black-owned agencies.

“What makes Spike so special is that he comes from the black experience and can translate it into a selling message,” said Ken Smikle, president of Chicago-based Target Market News, a publication about black consumers. “It is disingenuous to say this alliance has nothing to do with African Americans.”