In 1930, when the French-born Charles Pierre Casalasco finished building the Hotel Pierre—a Georgian-style chateau with a copper-clad mansard stretching its neck 500 feet above Central Park—he specified that the…
Try to imagine a distant, magical past called 1978, a time of Champale, the Bee Gees, and the Chrysler Cordoba. But the strangest thing about this long-lost time had to…
Question: What does a bottle of Pepsi from 1957 have in common with a pricey pair of Guess jeans in 2012? Answer: Pretty much nothing—except for tall, blonde and provocatively…
It may come as a surprise to brands spending millions on focus groups that the best marketing ideas are often ones that have been around forever. Case in point: giving…
By any definition, Steven C. Wyer was a savvy marketer and brand creator. In the course of three decades, the Nashville entrepreneur had worked in TV production, started a nutritional-products…
These are heady times for electric vehicles. Experts predict that sales of the internal-combustion engine will peak in 2020—that’s just nine years away—after which EVs will drive into the sunset…
Daymond John is an unlikely tenant for the 66th floor of the Empire State Building. In 1992, as a teenager in Hollis, Queens, John sold home-sewn, tie-top hats and dreamed…
Marketing 101 (along with actual demographic research) teaches that brand loyalty tends to be established at a young age—the painfully image-conscious adolescent years, especially. This is why a number of…
For the moment, Prince William and Kate Middleton are more than the world’s most famous betrothed. They’re the most effective piece of brand marketing machinery we’ve seen since Sarah Palin…
In case you haven’t noticed, something interesting is afoot in the world of celebrity endorsements. More and more of the stars involved aren’t just pushing brands—they’re pushing daisies. Yes, dead…
