Mother's Andrew Deitchman on Hot Dogs and Big Data

Clients with direct access to creatives, no credits on work, and launching a gourmet hot dog business at the same time as a new agency… Andrew Deitchman, chief executive and co-founder of Mother New York, believes in doing things differently. In this extract from the new issue of shots magazine, issue 146, he gives Sarah Shearman his recipe for future-proofing a brand in an increasingly fractured market

Seven years ago, Andrew Deitchman, chief executive and co-founder of Mother New York, decided to start a gourmet hot dog business selling dogs prepared ‘the French way’ – inside a toasted baguette. He bought a cart, set it up in Bleecker Park and employed someone to man it.

“It drove my partners nuts, because we’d just started the company,” recalls Deitchman. “But it was fun to do and I learned a lot about how to run a small business, which is not easy.” The Dogmatic brand was later sold to an investor and is now a ‘real’ restaurant in Manhattan.

Wieners with a whiskey chaser

Such ‘adventures’ have become an intrinsic part of Mother New York’s business. Under the Mother Ventures arm, run by Deitchman, the agency creates, markets and supports products and projects as wide ranging as White Pike whiskey or a soon-to-launch social media app. “It’s stuff people are really passionate about, and we treat it like any other project – but client work gets priority,” explains Deitchman, who describes himself as a serial entrepreneur. “Part of the reason for starting Mother was to do things like this.”

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