A SHOCKER!

Stan Hollander has announced that he will no longer act as chair or co-chair of the conferences on historical analysis and research in marketing. This has induced shock and distress among the marketing history community. Typical comments have been:

Selma Hollander: At last, I won't have to listen to those complaints about late papers.

Renee Dixon, conference secretary, Ninth Conference: I will miss reading all those interesting papers. Now for recreational reading I will have to subscribe to JMR and JCR.

Bob Nason, Chair, MSU Marketing Department: The department can finally march into the twentieth century without Stan trying to pull us back to the Victorian era.

Kellogg Center Manager, MSU: Well now maybe we can serve some decent menus.

Veteran Attendee (sought anonymity): Boy, I thought we were going to have to buy dynamite to accomplish this.

Another Anonymous Veteran: The meetings will never be the same, thank goodness.

Third Anonymous Attendee: Who is he and why should I care?

Stan Hollander: I am looking forward to going to the Tenth Conference, sitting in the audience and saying to my neighbors on the left and right, "These kids today don't know how to really run it."

Seriously, it has been fun and I look forward to the continuance of the fun. Let us hope marketing history will continue to march both backward and forward.

FLASH NEWS

"The evolution of Quality in Consumer Goods" by Mary L. Carsky, Roger A. Dickinson, and Charles R. Canedy III, Journal of Macromarketing; Fall 1998, pp. 132-145 received JMM's 1998 Best Article Award at the 1999 Macro-Theory Meeting in Lincoln, Nebraska in August. Congratulations to the authors!

WINE SHIPMENTS MISS MARKET

Two extremely well preserved sailing and oar-propelled ships have been found in deep Mediterranean waters off Ashkelon in southern Israel. The ships, apparently of Phoenician registry were engaged in wine trade about twenty-eight hundred years ago that originated around Damascus, traveled overland to Phoenicia and then proceeded by water to Egypt. Divers believe the vessels sank in a heavy storm but remained in good condition. They anticipate extensive further finds in the area.

SPEAK TO YOUR LAWYER

Law review style of writing and legal argumentation differ substantially from what generally appears in marketing journals. Yet in common law countries such as Canada, Great Britain and the United States (Louisiana is a partial exception, but it is moving toward conformity) where precedence plays such an important role in legal reasoning. There is strong affinity between marketing history and legal history. Now the American Business Law Association has set up a marketing law division. The members teach business law in university and collegiate schools of business. It has published a directory of 66 such members who have made an unusual and especially generous commitment. They have agreed that they will provide informal reviews of law related manuscripts to authors, formal reviews of similar articles to journals and co-authorship to marketing writers who want a legalistic partner. Obviously the third commitment is subject in contract law terms, to a "true meeting of the minds" among the prospective authors as to the value and personal interest of the project, the allocation of credit and the like. Write to: Executive Secretary, Ross D. Petty, Babson College, Babson Park, MA 02457; phone: 781-239-5529; e-mail: petty@babson.edu, for a copy of the directory. Also note that the Winter 1999 issue of American Business Law Journal, the association's quarterly journal, is a special marketing law issue.

      

Page 1

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6