Tony Ruiz

Tony has almost 30 years of industry experience at clients, general consumer agencies and U.S. Hispanic specialist agencies. In his 19th year at The Vidal Partnership, he works to define the value of U.S. Hispanics to his Clients’ businesses and lead the crafting of the strategic direction for creating meaningful connections of their brands to the increasingly important consumer that is the U.S. Hispanic.

In 1983 his career began in media planning and buying at SFM media where he worked on Isuzu Motors local market planning, honing his general knowledge of the media landscape on a market-by-market basis. His experience was complimented by packaged goods work on Ferraro Tic Tac’s and Fram Autolite Auto Parts.

He took his general experience and joined the media department at Conill Advertising, the largest agency specializing in U.S. Hispanics in the 80’s. While there he amassed extensive retail marketing experience on clients such as McDonald’s Corporation, Western Union, Zayre Stores and Toyota Motors. He rose to Media Director of Conill’s New York office and collaborated on the development of the first models for optimizing general and Hispanic targeted media delivery to the various consumer acculturation segments.

As a Regional Marketing Manager with McDonald’s Corporation in 1990 and ’91 he expanded his responsibilities across general and multicultural market segments, including strategic and creative development, kids and local store marketing.

He furthered his experience in strategic planning and packaged goods marketing upon returning to Conill in 1992 where as Managing Partner he lead work for Procter & Gamble, Scott Paper, Bayer Labs and Beneficial Management among others.

In 1995, Tony joined Vidal, Reynardus & Moya Advertising as Vice President and leveraged his experience to help grow that startup and became a Partner in 2000 when the agency evolved into The Vidal Partnership and its current status as a leader in the U.S. communications industry.

AT TVP Tony has lead the definition of the right Hispanic targeted channels comprising Hispanic communication strategies that compliment the general consumer communications strategies of TVP’s clients such as Home Depot, JC Penney, Heineken USA, Johnson & Johnson, NFL, Rémy Cointreau, TD Bank, Cablevision, Powerful Yogurt and others.

He has served on the Board of Directors of the New York Ad Club and Advertising Week, He has also served as a Hispanic Account Planning Excellence (HAPE) Awards judge and an IAB MXX Award Juror.

Tony was born and raised in New York’s Washington Heights neighborhood and is the proud son of humble parents of Cuban and Dominican origin. He holds his BA in Communication Arts and a marketing minor from Iona College in New Rochelle, New York.