Amplifying the Cult Fame of Staten Island Realtor Tony B

When you look at Ogilvy’s North American clients, you’ll recognise a plethora of household names - IKEA, Coca-Cola, IBM, to name a few. But recently, the agency added a new face to that roster, and that face belongs to Tony B of Staten Island realtor, Island Wide Realty.

Tony B (real name: Anthony Bernardo) has developed somewhat of a cult following thanks to his social media content promoting his company’s realty services. He’s not what you’d call a naturally charismatic or verbose salesman but that hasn’t stopped Tony from developing a larger-than-life on-screen personality, selling merch and becoming the star of his own commercial.

The aspirational ad came to be after Ogilvy’s North America president and chief creative officer, Chris Beresford-Hill, found Tony B’s Instagram account. In love with the character and authenticity of the realtor, he quickly got SMUGGLER director Randy Krallman (also a fan of Tony’s Instagram) on board and the result was a two-minute spot that promotes Island Wide Realty, Staten Island itself and Tony’s other favourite local businesses with an off-beat sense of humour.

Speaking to LBB’s Ben Conway, Chris says, “There's something so genuine and honest about everything Tony B does. He just presents himself and his properties to you in this beautifully stifled and matter of fact way – no romancing, no BS. Not trying too hard. It's so real it was hard at first to tell if it was really real. He hooked us from the start and seems like a lot of people felt that way.”

After exchanging DMs and breaking bread over a multi-course Staten Island meal or two, the realtor opened up to the idea of the ad and to working with the passionate team – helped by the Queens and Brooklyn natives among the crew, Randy being one of them.

“I loved him so much from his Instagram that I was really wary of doing anything he wasn’t enthused about so stayed out of the initial pitches until he and the creatives settled on a script they loved,” says Randy. “He was into it and ended up being a part of the production team, helping us lockdown locations and schedule our day.”

At this point, Chris brought ECDs Steven Fogel and Doug Fallon onto the project, who shared more about the writing process with LBB.

Steven says that the writing process centred around embracing how real and human Tony’s online presence is, aiming to showcase his authentic self, his business and the borough he represents and loves. “We went for a script that could capture all of that, and also play into the mythology,” he says. “[To] bring a little something extra and even more absurd to the legend of Tony B that everyone who loves him could enjoy.”

Describing working with the local hero, Doug says, “His delivery and timing was impeccable. Whether he was lying down and delivering lines as ‘Baby B’ or riffing great bits about Staten Italy. We were throwing lines at him and he nailed it all.”

“His natural cadence is pure gold,” adds Randy, “and his candour relative to the slickness of most brokers is his charm, so I never wanted to make it too perfect or micro-manage the comedic beats. He and ‘Tony C’ didn’t need to be coached about comedic timing or inflection, it’s all very natural to them.”

‘Tony C’ and ‘Baby B’ (a baby version of Tony with Tony’s face composited onto an infant’s body) are just some of the side characters that make a brief – but hilarious – cameo in the film.

Randy continues, “Tony B can't help but be authentic. What you see is what you get with him. That's his magic and why so many people love him. He's a great guy, a real guy, a great businessman and a family man with this huge community of friends. You feel that just being with him. He can't help but just be who he is and I think that's what screams through the camera, whether it's on his own socials or in this larger scale ad.”

When creating the ad, Randy shares that he initially explored a more meta, self-indulgent route – a series of 20-second seminars on ‘Unleashing the real estate broker within’ with motivational ‘grindset’ talks, but delivered in Tony B’s signature vernacular and pace. However, Chris made the decision to be ‘less clever’ and simply try to help Tony B improve his business – the correct decision, in retrospect.

“It’s a standard, lovable underdog story,” says Randy. “Tony is the antithesis of most brokers. He wastes no syllables, he’s not going to try to dazzle you with pomp and circumstance. He respects your intelligence and your time enough to just tell you how many beds and baths there are, whether the neighbourhood is very desirable or not (spoiler: it is) and leave it to you to follow up if you’re interested.” 

This underdog theme suits the ad’s location, Staten Island, which the director describes as “largely blue collar and inconvenient”. Requiring you to take a ferry to get to, he says there’s a grit and resilience that’s very endearing about the borough. “The fact that it’s NOT the cool borough means instead of having an artisanal pour-over coffee shop on every block, they have old-school businesses that have been there for decades and the people are salt of the earth.”

During the one-day shoot, the Staten Island traffic provided a challenge and kept things mostly on-script. And considering that Tony B, his wife and favourite employee had never acted before, Randy says that everyone involved did a great job. “My favourite line was probably the exchange: ‘Don’t overthink it, it’s a commercial’, as that kind of summed up the whole thing. My favourite off-camera moment was when the fire marshall came by his office to press us for having the sidewalk blocked and they just gently shooed him away: ‘Get outta here, why you bustin’ our balls?’. The guy came by later to apologise. That’s definitely atypical.”

The spot keeps within a certain style that’s usually associated with low-budget, local ads, but also feels and looks modern too. This is a balance that Randy credits to cinematographer Ed David. “He typically shoots incredibly beautiful, moody, fashion-based stuff, so dragging him into this sort of grimy run-and-gun stuff was fun.” He adds, “His relentless enthusiasm rubs off on everyone. We had so much B-roll of random people on the street. I feel like I would get knocked out if I jumped in people’s faces with a camera the way he does but people just immediately liked him and engaged!”

The light-hearted project also helped remind the creative team of why many people get into the industry in the first place – to have fun and make stuff with creativity and craft that people want to engage with. Steven and Doug noted, “When we're making ourselves laugh, and hopefully making something people want to watch – all while doing what feels really right for the brand – it feels like the best of all worlds.” 

Chris adds, “We get to do purpose-driven work every day on a larger scale on some of the bigger brands we work with, and this was a great moment to do that in a different, more pointed way. To help a small business really directly, and also just sink our teeth into some purely fun work. And with a really fast and efficient process too – not too much over-analysing, researching and strategising – just more [of] what can we do to accelerate this local business and bring this great personality to more people.”