Hudson Reporter Archive

The hippest place in Secaucus? Promotions firm handles high-profile clients

From the side of the road, 500 County Ave. looks like many of the small office/manufacturing buildings that have cropped up over the years along the eastern and southern sides of town.

Indeed, the small two-story structure next door to one of the town’s senior citizen buildings was originally constructed as the headquarters for Mack Industries, a major real estate development firm. Over the years, it has served numerous other uses, including light manufacturing.

In September, the building opened its doors as one of the hippest media production companies in the Metropolitan area: New World Group, which does advertising and in-store displays for some of the top music, movie and artist talents in the world. New World is a leading marketing and advertising firm for big-name entertainment industry clients.

Once through the double glass doors, all perception of a traditional office vanishes, along with many of the interior walls, which have been knocked down in order to create a sense of space.

"It was just too constricting the other way," said Chris Seriale, New World’s founder and CEO, recently.

With a stereo piping music into the large front room, the building has the feel and look of a discotheque, with the silver ducts for air circulation incorporated into the extremely modern design. The offices along the rear of the building all have glass walls looking out into the front – include Seriale’s.

Cutting edge posters decorate many of the walls, each reflecting one of the many campaigns the company had taken on: from HBO’s "The Sopranos" to the Beatles’ recent hit compilation CD, One.

"We provide a marketing concept," Seriale said during a tour of the new facility last month. For him, a marketing concept includes in-store displays, window treatments, and retail packages of all kinds, from banners to posters, brochures, and other advertising programs.

Seriale spent most of his youth living and going to school in Leonia, where he graduated from high school. He does remember a brief time when he was in ninth grade and his family split, causing him to spend three months with his father in Secaucus, attending Secaucus High School.

He went onto study at the Parsons School of Design, part of the New School University in Manhattan. Seriale started New York Group in 1995 when he took over a Leonia-Englewood based printing company. He had gone into printing because he realized that design work – despite its hip appeal – did not pay as well as the printing.

"I did a design and got paid $300," he said. "The company that got the printing job got $100,000. I realized I was in the wrong end of the business."

In some ways, Seriale’s story is one of innovation and success. When proposing to start the printing business, he had about $400 in his pocket. He managed to find someone to invest $5 million in his dream, out of which he purchased the printing company.

Design, however, was never far out of his mind. Then one day, he was looking at work that one of his customers wanted done, and told the company he would design the poster himself.

"What they brought me was really awful," he said. "I knew we could do a much better job at redesigning it."

Since then, a new idea began to emerge

"We were thinking fantastic ideas," he said. "We were really inspired."

Seriale didn’t merely want to run a printing company, but a full promotional service that included printing. He moved to Secaucus 1996, renting a building on Dorigo Lane.

"We spent four and a half years on Dorigo Lane," he said.

As the company grew, it was contracted to create promotional materials for celebrities like Madonna, Paul McCartney, and Sting, as well as Broadway and film stars.

History of the building

Looking out the window of his office, Seriale can see the skyline of Manhattan, and the indentation that marks the passage of the New Jersey Turnpike north to south, and route 495 headed into the Lincoln Tunnel.

"This hill this building is on is the fill taken out when Grand Central Station was built in New York," he said.

He had eyed the building for a while, but the original owners wanted what he thought was too much for it, so he looked elsewhere.

"But the whole time I was looking for another place, I kept comparing those places to this one," he said.

Of course, with his ideas about the image the company wanted, Tribeca or SoHo might have suited his needs better than Secaucus, but the space was very attractive and so was the location.

After a subsequent owner lost the property to foreclosure, numerous attempts to re-sell it proved futile and it sat vacant for several years. Eventually, Seriale reached out to Rick Metjian, senior vice president of The Avanti Group, a real estate firm.

New World was able to acquire the property where others had failed. But Metjian credited Seriale with the purchase, saying Seriale’s persistence allowed him to purchase the building.

"He was able to accomplish what others could not.," Metjian said.

In many ways, Secaucus is near enough Manhattan to have advantages the city does not.

"Located only minutes from Manhattan, New World saw the tremendous opportunity the property offered," Metjian said "New World was able to expand its current production and distribution facilities as well as upgrade its executive offices. After a major renovation of the interior and exterior of the building, New World can now offer its clientele the finest in advertising and marketing services. "

With aid from his grandfather’s construction firm, Seriale fixed up the building and converted it into what he and the staff called "an amazing place to work."

He said high-profile clients coming in from Manhattan are often impressed by the space, although from the outside the building looks like other buildings.

"This is our sales and production office," he said, leading a small tour of the facility, which is an amazing design accomplishment in itself.

His staff designs nearly everything from web sites to t-shirts, posters to brochures – though oddly enough after six years he’s only now getting around to printing a brochure for his own company.

"We get business through word of mouth," he said.

His company added various elements as a result of need. They got a job doing t-shirts, then went out and became a silk screen company. Everything is designed in the offices in Secaucus, with the printing work done at the Sparta facility. Seriale has a staff of 11 in Secaucus and 28 at his 40,000 square foot offset press facility in Sparta.

"We’re putting together a five-year plan that will turn New World Group into a full-fledged advertising company," Seriale said.

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