October 2000, Vol. 14 No. 1
COMBINE C.H.A.R.M. AND RESEARCH!
The 10th Conference on Historical Analysis & Research in Marketing (May 17-20, 2001) provides a great opportunity to take advantage of research opportunities at Duke. The John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History at Duke University is the most active center in the U.S. for documenting these fields and promoting their study. Part of the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, the Center operates in a user-friendly environment on Duke's beautiful campus. Researchers are welcome to spend a few hours, a few days, or even a few weeks exploring the Center's rich resources that fill nearly 5,000 feet of shelves. Major collections include the archives of the J. Walter Thompson Company, the D'Arcy agency, and the former Wells Rich Greene agency. The center is home, too, to the Outdoor Advertising Archives, including records of the OAAA trade organization. Other important collections include the Mobius Advertising Awards, the McGraw-Hill Information Center Advertising/Marketing Library and much more. Collections contain over 600,000 print ads, over 100,000 slides, audio and video tapes, market research reports, internal advertising agency files, and papers of individual advertising executives, all complemented by a growing collection of books, ephemeral printed material, and trade journals. Check out our website for more information: http://scriptorium.lib.edu/Hartman/ or call 919-660-5827 and speak to Jacqueline Reid to arrange a research visit. If possible, please try to arrange to add your research time after the conference rather than before, so our staff can be of maximum assistance to you.
C.H.A.R.M. Sale
Old Books and Old Ads!
Bibliophiles and collectors take note! The Hartman Center will be offering for sale hundreds of books on marketing, advertising, and related topics and thousands of print advertisement tearsheets-all duplicates from the collections. This chance of a lifetime to build your personal library or teaching collection will benefit the Hartman Center helping to defray conference costs, and with your enthusiastic participation, also helping us to acquire and make available more research collections! We'll be able to take checks and cash only, so do come prepared. More information will be available closer to the time of the conference.
Distinguished Professors Emeritus Panel
at 10th C.H.A.R.M.
A special panel session has been planned for the C.H.A.R.M. conference next May, the tentative theme of which is "A Half Century Retrospective on the Sociology of Marketing Knowledge - or, Great Minds I've Known." To date, three scholars have agreed to participate on the panel. They include George Fisk (Georgia Power Professor of Marketing, Emeritus, Emory University), David D. Monieson (Nabisco Professor of Marketing, Emeritus, Queen's University), and Stanley C. Hollander (Professor Emeritus of Marketing, Michigan State University). This promises to be a rare opportunity for a living retrospective on the early development of the marketing discipline.
According to National Public Radio, 2000 marks the centennial of the Brownie camera. The Brownie was by no means the first camera, but it was the first inexpensive one. Originally constructed of cardboard but eventually encased in plastic, and remodeled and revamped frequently during its seventy-year lifetime, the Brownie introduced millions of children and adults to low cost photography. The George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York is mounting a centennial exhibit of all the model variations and the pictures it took. It'll be on display until November 5, 2000.
American Heritage magazine has introduced a new and interesting feature in its May/June 2000 issue. Written by Frederick Allen, entitled "Behind the Cutting Edge," the column has two aims: 1) to report on the antiquity of supposedly very new transformations and inventions in our society and, 2) to examine the impact of those old changes on the supposedly current revolution. In the initial essay, Allen argues that supposed modern communication speed-up resulting from electronic technology is really a continuation of a trend that originated with older technologies such as electricity, railroads, motor cars, the telephone and the telegraph. In fact, any supposed speed-up has been offset by the 20th century's one genuine revolution, that in health care, which has given us greatly increased time through much longer life expectancy.* As an expression of the second objective, he points out that computer input relies on three technologies: the keyboard, the monitor, and the mouse. The keyboard is simply a modification of Shoal's 19th century typewriter keyboard designed to separate letters likely to be typed in sequence and thus subject to key jamming. While the monitor uses a format based upon early movie technology from Edison's laboratory. Only the mouse is really new.
* One female centarian that RIM heard interviewed on the radio, thought the 20th century's most important revolution was quite different. She gave primacy to the change in swimsuits.
SOMEBODY LIKES US
The Policy Board of the Macromarketing Conference (meeting somewhere on the Adriatic in July) adopted the following resolution as part of their discussions concerning the Journal of Macromarketing: "The Macromarketing Policy Board enthusiastically endorses continuance of the relationship between the Marketing History Conference and the Journal of Macromarketing. The Chair has asked to communicate this to Stan Hollander and Terry Witkowski, as members of the Policy Board, most closely aligned with the interests of the History Conference."
According to Money, May, 2000, the Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, was one of the very first (number three in inception) large landscaped cemeteries in the United States. Unfortunately for Greenwood, early 19th century families preferred burial in compact, neighborhood churchyards and the project seemed doomed to failure. Then in the early 1840's, its management persuaded the family of Dewitt Clinton to disinter the extremely popular former U.S. senator and New York State governor from his Albany grave and rebury his remains in an impressive Greenwood tomb. This early celebrity endorsement attracted much attention and drew an increasing clientele to the cemetery.
According to Smithsonian Institute secretary L.M. Small writing in the May 2000 Smithsonian, the Smithsonian Institute Libraries own, among other things, "several hundred thousand trade catalogs." These are invaluable for social, cultural and business history research. The Institute plans to digitalize this material and place it on its website: www.sil.si.edu. The Smithsonian Institute Libraries (SIL) and its website already contains an enormous amount of reference material available to scholars and researchers.
The History of Advertising Trust (HAT) has substantially enlarged its website: www.hatads.org.uk. The site lists all donors, the principal collections in the Archive, the three most recent issues of HATNEWS, and it details their exhibitions and merchandise for sale. The site also invites comments and communication from readers of the site and hopes to be more useful, in particular to researchers.
HAT is also circulating a traveling exhibit to schools and public places in Britain entitled "Ephesus to E-Commerce: 2010 Years of Advertising."
From April 28 to August 13, 2000 the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History mounted an exhibit entitled "Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga" that celebrated the millennium of Leif Erickson's travels to Newfoundland, Canada. The exhibit concentrates on the daily life in the Vikings' western settlements in England, Scotland, Iceland, Greenland, Canada, and the U.S., but will include some trade goods. A note included in the press kit for the exhibit points out that although Viking women typically occupied traditional household roles, some engaged in trade. Many female graves have been found along the eastern Russian trade routes and evidence exists of female participation in southern and westward adventures. From Washington the exhibit will travel to New York, Chicago, Ottawa, Log Angeles, and Houston. A large illustrated catalogue is available from the Smithsonian. For more information about the exhibit, visit www.mnh.si.edu/vikings.
Another note included in the press kit points out that one of the scholars involved in the exhibit preparation is Elizabeth Ward, a Berkeley Magna Cum Laude, MA, George Washington, who is serving an internship at the Museum. She proved so knowledgeable and helpful that she was promoted to assistant curator. She intends to continue doctoral work when the exhibit closes. Where do they find students like that?
However, William Fitzhugh, creator of the exhibit said in a radio interview (NPR, May 30, 2000) that the Vikings' failure to establish a successful trading business in North America doomed their settlement on this side of the Atlantic.
Peter N. Golder (New York University), "Historical Method in Marketing Research With New Evidence on Long-term Market Share Stability," Journal of Marketing Research (May, 2000, pp. 156-172) outlines a detailed twelve step approach to historical research. The main point of the methodological discussion for many of our readers will be the insistence upon detailed scrutiny of all evidence and conclusions through such questions as "what might have been the source's motivation in providing this evidence?" In other words, there is an argument for great rigor and care in handling data. More formal and less humanistic, the paper brings to mind Terry Witkowski's great article on how to write history for the marketing journals. Terry's launching point, of course, was what a historian had to do to adopt Golder's approaches: what a marketing specialist has to do to use history. Golder cites several Marketing History Conference Habitues, Lowe, Fullerton, Pollay, Savitt, Nevett, Monieson, Jones, Keep, Hollander, and Dickinson. Not all are cited with unrestrained agreement. Golder draws on about four major marketing journals for his examples. Let's try to introduce him to JMM and the Marketing History Conferences. Golder carries his demonstration further by showing how some leading marketing scholars have reached erroneous conclusions about long-term market share stability through reliance upon secondary and tertiary versions of portions of a study which in its original entirety showed an average lack of such stability.
A few business historians, a.k.a. industrial archeologists, like to muck about the remains of old manufacturing and distribution facilities. A great majority, like practically all marketing historians, tend to nest indoors. We roost in offices. Starting in November, 2000, the National Building Museum in Washington D.C. will host a major exhibit devoted to the architecture of the individual office. RIM does not know what the designers plan to show, but can there be an appropriate academic office without several large bookcases, a few really comfortable easy chairs, and a fireplace? A small refrigerator in which to chill the Sherry would also be appropriate.
Oxford Journals and the Business History Society have created a new and expensive journal called Enterprise and Society: The International Journal of Business History which will appear quarterly. It particularly seeks articles that explore the relationships between changes in business and the environment in which it occurs. Either entity may be either the independent or the dependent variable, or probably more often the case, the change will be seen as a dynamic interaction. For further information, call 1-800-852-7323 or check out the website at www.eh.net/~bhc/
Smithsonian magazine, April 2000, contains an article, "Reading the Messages in Everyday Things," about John Stillgo, a Harvard history professor who studies development of the American culture by tracing the background of such everyday objects such as lampposts, manhole covers, and mulch. For examples of Stillgo's approach see his two 1988 books, Outside Lies Magic: Regaining History and Awareness in Everyday Places, New York, Walker and Co.; and Borderland: The Origins of American Suburb: 1820-1939, New Haven, Yale University Press.
The newsletter of the J.W. Hartman Center at Duke reports the receipt of an extensive file of 20th century cigarette marketing material received from the Leggit and Meyers Corporation in Durham. This file includes 10,000 print ads as well radio scripts, car cards, point of sale material and other related items. This has been added to their already extensive holdings in the tobacco sector.
Historians are not the only small, highly focused group within the marketing professorate although they may be the wisest, the most cultivated, and the most interesting. The American Collegiate Retailing Association (ACRA) is the professional organization of collegiate teachers of retailing. It was founded as a small club for deans and directors of specialized schools and departments of retailing within universities. As those schools were gradually eliminated during the post war period, ACRA opened its membership to business school faculty who taught or researched retail management (people mainly located within departments of marketing). It is now expanded to include members from a wide variety of disciplines, although probably about half of its 267 members are marketing teachers. The organization holds two regular and some special meetings per year, publishes a newsletter, and maintains working relationships with some practitioner associations, especially the National Retail Federation and the International Council of Shopping Centers. Professor Jack Gifford at Miami University of Ohio has prepared a brief but well researched history of the organization's transformation. A letter, phone call, postcard, or especially an e-mail to Jack, who is very much computer oriented, would undoubtedly provide you with a copy. His address is: Dept. of Marketing, Miami University, School of Business Administration, 222b Upham, Oxford, OH 45056; phone: 513-529-1290; and e-mail: gifforjb@muohio.edu, or check out the new ACRA website: http://www.sba.muohio.edu/acra.
John Wright, Emeritus Professor of Advertising at Georgia State and co-author of a very well-known advertising textbook, continues to live in Atlanta. One of John's principle interests now is a course in celebrities that he coordinates for the Georgia Senior University where he also takes courses.
We don't know the Ranger's bowling habits, but he strongly recommends Bowling Alone, by Robert D. Putnam, New York, Simon and Scheuster, 2000, 541 pgs., $26.00. This is a book length extension of the famous journal article. It furthers the author's argument that American's social connections have deteriorated and been replaced by a kind of individualistic isolation. Drawing upon a wide range of evidence, the author feels we suffer from a loss of social capital which he attributes primarily to our growing addiction to television viewing.
Hamburger and Fries to Go, by Eugen Weber, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, located in Baltimore, MD, 394 pgs. Part of a roadside history series, this book tells us much about where Americans have grabbed a quick meal on the run.
Power Plays: Shakespeare's Lessons in Leadership and Management by John Whitney and Tina Parker, New York, Simon & Schuster. There were no computers, no electronics, no jetting off to see a client halfway around the world and returning the next day during the Elizabethan age. Shakespeare knew a great deal about human nature that has held true for four centuries. Whitney and Parker find many good explanations for leadership success and failure in the Bard's works. Using them seems to work well with business classes.
Mitch Griffin, Barry J. Babin and Doan Modianos, "Shopping Values of Russian Consumers: The Impact of Habituation in a Developing Economy," Journal of Retailing, Spring 2000, pp. 33-52.
Barry Babin has been a participant in several C.H.A.R.M. conferences.
Rob Nixon, Dreambirds: The Strange History of the Ostrich in Fashion, Food, and Fortune, New York, Picador, U.S.A., 2000, $23.90, also London: Doubleday, 1999 tells the fascinating story of Lithuanian immigrants who moved to the South African desert in the 19th century to raise ostriches for highly demanded ornamental feathers used in women's clothing. The ostrich farmers prospered fabulously and built baronial mansions. All collapsed in a manner reminiscent of the Dutch tulip boom when the feathers went out of fashion during World War I. Nixon, raised in South Africa, moved to New York, subsequently traveled to Arizona where he found another cluster of get-rich-quick hopefuls centered on ostrich breeding for meat, leather, and egg production. The book points out the similarities between the two environments and says much about speculative booms. Hopefully it will not apply to the internet.
CORRECTION
In the last issue of RIM, we mentioned a book entitled Consumer Boycotts: Effecting Change Through the Marketplace and the Media, published by Routledge, 1999, $19.95. Unfortunately we neglected to publish the author's name and we certainly do apologize. Monroe Friedman (Prof. of Psychology at Eastern Michigan University) presents an historical study of U.S. consumer boycotts over the course of the 20th century. For more information, check Amazon.com which gives several brief reviews.