By Seth Daniel
When it comes to giving life to the mundane, MK3’s creative director Mark J. DiTondo has shown he can liven up any campaign.
DiTondo, 35, has lived in Everett for about a year and works at MK3 Creative in Charlestown. This summer, the company won a Gold Medal from the New England Direct Marketing Association (NEDMA) for the in-house campaign ‘This is How You Santander.’ The awards celebrate creative excellence in marketing, and DiTondo was the creative director for the Santander campaign.
DiTondo said the campaign for Santander involved a human resources campaign to show prospective employees the various position within the bank – somewhat dry material that DiTondo said was made fun with a creative bent.
“(Santander) came to us and wanted to do human resources recruiting and wanted to target millennials,” he said. “They wanted to re-brand themselves and lose the stodgy old persona that most banks have and pretend not to have…We ended up making four, 60-second commercial spots with an edge…The idea was to take the boring information out of it that people can read on the website and have fun with it and have a fun spokesman that the audience doesn’t know if they really like him or not.”
Santander and MK3 worked together from concept to execution to create the award-winning series of videos that were designed to aid the bank’s efforts to attract top millennial candidates for new positions in the bank’s consumer and banking divisions. MK3 team members Mark DiTondo, creative director; Jonathan Markella, copy writer; and Ted Wayman, account executive, created the video series.
Each video features edgy and humorous content that appeals to the millennial workforce while still relaying Santander’s goals for recruiting top talent and the variety of roles available at the bank. The nine videos are featured on a special section of the bank’s corporate website, and begins with a video message from the head of consumer and business banking, Michael Cleary.
DiTondo, originally from Buffalo, said he moved to Everett last year on Ferry Street after having looked other places first. He said once he came to Everett and found his condo, he knew he had found the right place to locate.
“I had been in apartments since I loved to Boston 11 years ago and was looking for my own place and wanted to buy my own condo,” he said. “After looking for over a year in an especially tight housing market where the competition was incredible, I had to expand my search to other places I hadn’t looked initially. I found an opportunity in Everett and when I looked at it, I fell in love with it right away. I like the place and I thought Everett was a good investment with the casino and everything coming here.”
So far, he said he has really enjoyed Everett and frequents the stores on Ferry Street and the breweries in the Fermentation District.
As for his career, it’s one that is rooted in the mailroom where he started many years ago, and has progressed to becoming an award-winning creative director calling the shots behind the camera.
“I’m pretty much into being a creative director right now,” he said. “I’m two years in. My goal is to continue to hone my craft and bring that to MK3 and our clients. I’d like to do more consumer facing clients and have more opportunities there. We do a lot of business to business work now, and I’d like to have the chance to do more consumer-facing things. That’s where I’m concentrating now in my role.”