Our Team
John Russo
Partner — President
John Russo entered the advertising industry as Executive Vice President and General Manager of the internationally regarded music production company Elias Associates Inc based in New York City in 1984.
During Mr. Russo’s stewardship the company was renowned as a pioneering force in the fields of sound texturing and sound design. Elias Associates is largely credited with being the earliest and most successful proponent in this emergence of an entirely new frontier in advertising music production.
This new genre of environmental and atmospheric sound creation and application was unheard of within the advertising industry. By virtue of their efforts and others emulating their initiatives, “sound design” has become a tenet that has been adopted and recognized industry wide as a critical asset for product branding, consumer recall, and product identity integration throughout the world.
In 1990 Mr. Russo created his own music production entity, Russo/Grantham Productions Inc. with partner Marshall Grantham. The guiding principle of this endeavor was to spearhead a creative production resource that initiated wholly new perspectives in the marketing of music production services. Russo/Grantham redefined client services with an inspired philosophy that provided each project undertaken with an assorted array of highly polished creative directions. Each project undertaken resulted in a series of multiple submissions intended to interpret every assignment with a variety of options and choices. These high caliber demonstration productions allowed for a more informed and articulated client decision process. Creative solutions became much more accessible and forthright for all parties involved. These multiple version fully orchestrated demos created a new trend and set new industry standards, challenging all previous baselines of service provided by other competitors.
Russo/Grantham became the first music company to compile these demos into a proprietary music library. Its primary purpose was intended to offer advertising agencies the option to license these works, either exclusively or non exclusively, for the lifetime of their commercials’ media play. The concept of actively promoting library compilation music licensing was met with great enthusiasm and was a resounding success. This marks yet another example of the company’s pioneering efforts in ground breaking initiatives and innovation. Under Mr. Russo’s guidance Russo/Grantham Productions became one of the most well regarded and successful music companies in advertising production existence.
Having established itself as one of the country’s leading music production resources Russo/Grantham had the distinction of owning one of the largest independently owned recording facilities in the USA, Back Pocket Recording Studios. This facility was comprised of nine 24+ track studios, a 10 “on staff” full time exclusive composers, 4 full time engineers, and a complement of support staff that numbered over 30 employees. Back Pocket Studios enabled the company to become one of the most prolific suppliers of original music and sound design nationwide. Additional services such as voice over recording, ADR and final on air film mixing further enhanced their reputation as audio post production specialists. Back Pocket Studios served the film, recording label, television broadcast and advertising industries with alacrity within the confines of its 17,500 sf sized footprint. Russo/Grantham’s client list is a virtual “who’s who” of Fortune 500 companies who have trusted them to turn their audio communications needs into an “on air” reality.
Mr. Russo has an outstanding history of strategic vision cultivated by over 25 years of experience in the advertising, digital marketing, broadcast and entertainment industries. He is a multifaceted executive with superior instincts, exceptional people skills, outstanding leadership qualities, problem solving savvy and a relentless drive in the pursuit of excellence.
