BottomFeeder March 2006

Ambush Marketing

An interesting article about the sniping that goes on in sports sponsorship appeared in the Feb. 18th issue of The Economist: "Ambush Marketing: War Minus the Shooting," p.62. Ambush marketing occurs when a corporation that is not sponsoring an event tries, nonetheless, to be associated with it. As the article points out, an example occurred during the 1996 Olympics when Nike handed out free hats to people attending the event that was being sponsored by Reebok. Apart from calling your attention to an interesting article, we also wanted to make you aware of some good resources relating to the subject of "sports sponsorship" generally and "ambush marketing" in particular. Information about the former is found in rather an odd source - an old Economist Intelligence Unit publication in our possession that bears the title Sponsorship. It outlines three elements that help distinguish sponsorship from patronage: 1) "A sponsor makes a contribution in cash or kind -- which may or may not include services and expertise -- to an activity which in some measure is a leisure pursuit, either sport or within the broad definition of the arts; 2) the sponsored activity does not form part of the main commercial function of the sponsoring body (otherwise it would be straightforward promotion, rather than sponsorship) and 3) the sponsor expects a return in terms of publicity" (p.4). The report then presents a list of some of the heavily sponsored sports in the U.K. (darts, for example) and notes that the first motor sport event was sponsored by a French magazine in 1871. Apart from this good introduction to the subject, those interested should see this thorough literature review: "An International Review of Sponsorship Research: Extension and Update," Bjorn Walliser, International Journal of Advertising, Vol.22, No.1, 2003, p.5. For an article with Canadian content see: "Sports Sponsorship Development in Leading Canadian Companies: Issues and Trends," Des Thwaites, et al. International Journal of Advertising, Vol.17, No.1, 1998. You can find these articles and many others on the subject of sponsorship by using WARC which is one of our marketing databases. For a recent book on the subject see: Sports Sponsorship and Marketing Communications: A European Perspective by Win Lagae. For another EIU publication on the related subject of arts sponsorship see: Sponsoring the Arts: New Business Strategies for the 1990s. On the more specific subject of ambush marketing see: "Point of View: Ambush Marketing: Immoral or Imaginative Practice?" by Tony Meenaghan, Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 34, No.5, Sept./Oct. 1994.

From the Stacks
During our project to remove older volumes to storage, we discovered five that were old indeed. They were all authored by James William Gilbart and they were all acquired long ago by the Western Libraries as part of the massive J.Davis Barnett donation. The oldest volumes are the two from 1849: A Practical Treatise on Banking (the 5th edition). From 1853, we have the Lectures on the History and Principles of Ancient Commerce and from 1882 The History, Principles, and Practice of Banking. In volume one of the latter you will find a "Biographical Notice of the Author" (p.ix). A portrait of Gilbart is also found in that volume and another is contained in the Lectures. There are also other volumes by Gilbart in the collections, including Elements of Banking... and The History of Banking in America. For additional details about Gilbart see: Robert Brown, ‘Gilbart, James William (1794–1863)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. The DNB is now available to you electronically.

Entrepreneurs of the Year - Eastern Division
The winners of the Ernst & Young "Entrepreneur of the Year" award for Atlantic Canada are profiled in the December 2005 issue of Progress which is available in the Business Library. Mike Wilson of Atlantic Industries Ltd.(metal fabrication) was at the top and the others are: Paul Leblanc, of the Extreme Group (advertising); Jerry Byrne of D.F. Barnes Ltd. (offshore manufacturing); Stephan and Paul O'Regan of O'Regan's Automotive Group (auto sales and service); Phil Fraser of Killam Properties (property development) and Eric Horton, Randy Eisener & Gary Allen of Perfectpass Control Systems (speed controls for boating). There are also profiles of past winners. For more information visit the Ernst & Young "Entrepreneur of the Year" site at http://www.eoy.ca. Those looking for a career in Atlantic Canada will find Progress to be a useful source of information. Attached here is a link to another list we did based on Progress reporting.

Profile No. 1.

"Ivey's mission is to develop business leaders who think globally, act strategically and contribute to the societies within which they operate".

J. Irwin Miller (May 26, 1909 - August 16, 2004)

This is the first profile in what we anticipate will be a series dedicated to individuals in the business world who are exemplars of that portion of the Ivey mission statement that focuses on the social contributions made by business leaders.

It was completely by accident that some summer reading taken to a cottage in Muskoka happened to contain a biographical sketch of the American industrialist J. Irwin Miller whose family has long occupied an estate close by in Windermere,Ontario. The admiring portrait is found in the American Scholar : "The Industrial-Strength Humanist: J. Irwin Miller Knew How to Get Things Built," by Robert Campbell (Vol.74, No.1, Winter, 2005,p.119). It quickly became clear that there is much about Miller to admire and the purpose here is to introduce to you a cultivated gentleman and patron of the arts who happened to run a large multinational while engaging in a variety of social causes. Before presenting information about Mr.Miller's contribution to society in general, we will provide some specific information about his business background and career.

Born in Columbus, Indiana into a family that was successful in banking and real estate, Miller is known in business circles for running for years the huge manufacturing company Cummins, Inc. which began as Cummins Engine Company. As a youngster Miller spent considerable time with the family chauffeur, Clessie Cummins, tinkering with diesel engines and the family invested heavily in Cummins for which Miller went to work in the early 1930s. He became President of Cummins in 1945 and Chairman in 1951 and remained actively involved with the company until 1977.

Although our concern here is with Miller's general contributions to society it is clear that his approach to the company and its employees was also an enlightened one. Cummins was successful in attracting talented and diverse workers and they continue to do well in that regard. It was reported recently in the Indianapolis Star that the company "has managed to buck the national average with a five-year hiring rate of 20 percent women" (which is high for a manufacturer). Cummins had worker-centered policies and Miller supported the foundation of a union in the 1930s. He wrote at one point that: "We understand the fact that we must give a machine the best care and the best treatment if we are to receive from it the best work. We have sometimes shied away from the similar fact that we must give a person the best care and the best treatment if we are to receive from him the best work". Upon his retirement from the Board, the Diesel Workers Union presented Miller with an honorary membership.

Miller attended Yale where he majored in Latin and Greek and he also did graduate work at Oxford. He was a generalist with strong interests in the arts and humanities and it was apparently at Yale that he became interested in architecture as a means for civic improvement. Those familiar with the Ivey School and the Ivey family will be aware of the positive impact a family can have on a city and such was the case with Miller and the Irwin family on Columbus, Indiana which is known as a "Mecca of Modern architecture" and the "Athens of the Prairie". Columbus, a small city south of Indianapolis, "boasts a collection of contemporary buildings unrivaled by that of any other American city except New York, Chicago and Los Angeles". There are over 70 significant buildings listed on the "Architectural Tour Map" that were designed by such famous architects such as: Eliel and Eero Saarinen, I.M.Pei, the firm Skidmore Owings and many more. " With its population of 39,000, Columbus likely has more buildings per capita designed by the winners of the profession's highest award - the Pritzker Architecture Prize - than any city on earth".

It has been noted that "Columbus, Indiana and J. Irwin Miller are almost holy words in architectural circles" and the reason is that Miller (the "Medici of the Midwest") established the Cummins Foundation in the 1950s which agreed to pay the architectural fees if famous and respected architects were chosen to build the schools, churches and buildings in the city. It was felt that it would be easier to attract workers to a more attractive city and that beautiful structures would make Columbus a more appealing place in which to live. All of this seems familiar given the recent emphasis on the "creative city" concept that has been widely discussed in the last couple of years.

After his recent death it was noted in one obituary that "When he died last August aged 95, thousands of Cummins workers downed tools to pay tribute to a man who not only built an empire, but also used his riches to promote human rights". Apart from his involvement with the architectural reconstruction of Columbus he was also active in the civil rights movement in the 1960s and helped organize the 1963 march on Washington. He was such a highly regarded and well respected business leader that you will find his picture occupying the entire cover of the October, 1968 issue of Esquire under the caption "This Man Ought to be the Next President of the United States". The author of the accompanying article, Steven Roberts, was given the assignment of finding a better choice for President during that tumultuous year and he found one in J. Irwin Miller. Miller had served on many government committees for both parties and believed firmly in government service and the need to address social ills. He wrote: "There are two ways in which you could avoid influenza. You could go all over the room with a microscope and a squirt gun and try to kill every influenza bug in the room, or you could make yourself sufficiently healthy that you could throw off the germ. The second way is more practical. That way is to make society so healthy that its operations are self convincing, that it really is the kind of place it pretends to be. You make this country resemble what we say it is on the Fourth of July speeches and I think many of our present problems would begin to diminish. We have to keep our promises". While he was interested in politics he had the intelligence to recognize that he would not be a good politician. Senator Lugar noted that Miller was " a reverent man whose extraordinary talents were clothed in remarkable humility" and that seems like a fitting epitaph. Another suitable one is provided by another senator (Birch Bayh): "His heart and soul was dedicated to making life generally better for a whole lot of folks".

Additional comments and suggested resources:
To learn more about J. Irwin Miller see the sources noted below. He died not long after returning from a brief trip to Canada. The Canadian connections of the Miller and Irwin families go back to 1908 when Miller's grandfather bought Llanllar Point in Muskoka. Miller's generosity and philanthropy extended to Canada and particularly to the little community of Windermere. It was noted upon his death that "Pretty much any endeavour that needed support received it from the Miller family..." (Jake Good, "Irwin Miller Left a Profound Mark on Windermere," The Muskokan, September 2, 2004). There is also an architectural legacy. See "Ontario's Saarinen: Never Published Before, This Summer Home by Architect Eero Saarinen is a Provocative Experiment in Style..." by Peter C Papademetriou, City and Country Home Vol.8, No.5, June, 1989.
Information about Cummins, the company, is easy to locate. Although Miller thought that local roots were important -- he remained in Columbus where he felt it most worthwhile to be in "praiseworthy competition with one's ancestors" - Cummins is now a global competitor with successful operations in India and China and elsewhere. In fact there is a recent Ivey case with the title "Taming the Dragon: Cummins in China".
There is also considerable information about the related family enterprise - Irwin Financial - and they have recently expanded operations into Canada.

Bibliography:
anon. "Cummins Mourns the Loss of Visionary Leader: Former Chairman, Chief Executive Officer J. Irwin Miller's Legacy Touched Thousands," Business Wire, August 17, 2004; anon. "J. Irwin Miller, 95 of Indiana, Patron of Prized Architecture," Los Angeles Times, August 22, 2004; anon. "Death of a Pioneer," Daily Telegraph, September 4, 2004; anon. "Ex-Cummins CEO Dead at 95," Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, August 18, 2004; anon. "Architectural Benefactor J. Irwin Miller Dies," The Washington Post, August 18, 2004; Campbell, Robert. "Columbus, Ind. -- Architectural Mecca," The Wall Street Journal, September 1, 2004; Bussel, Abby. "Architecture Patron J. Irwin Miller, 1909-2004: Transformed Indiana Town," Architecture, Vol. 93, No.10, Oct.1, 2004; Forgey Benjamin. "The Champion of Urbane Renewal," The Washington Post, August 21, 2004; Knight, Dana. "Engineering a Future," Knight Ridder Tribune Business News, Feb. 19, 2006, p.1; Pace, Eric. "J. Irwin Miller Industrialist and Patron of Modern Architecture," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 23, 2004, (reprinted from The New York Times, August 19, 2004; Roberts, Steven V. "Is it Too Late for A Man of Honesty, High Purpose and Intelligence to be Elected President of the United States?" Esquire, Vol.LXVIII, No.4, October 1981p.89;Schneider, Rob. "Columbus, Indiana Hails Benefactor Who Built Up Successful Engine Company," The Indianapolis Star, August 22, 2004; Tristam, Pierre, "Americans of a Higher Purpose: J.Irwin Miller, Gloria Emerson," Daytona Beach News Journal, September 21, 2004; Webber, Tammy. "Indiana Engine Magnate Dies at 95," The Indianapolis Star, August 17, 2004; Whiteley, Patrick. "Stroke of Genius That Created a Diesel Giant," Daily Telegraph, Oct.11, 2004
Selected web sites:
For an interesting lecture by Mr. Miller see his address to the Indiana Humanities Council in 1997. The complete text of the talk is presented here.
Details about Cummins are found at this site: www.cummins.com. In 2005 the magazine Business Ethics chose Cummins as its top U.S. corporate citizen.
To learn more about the Cummins Foundation see here. At this site you can also read their "Corporate Social Responsibility" report.
Information about Irwin Financial is here.
To learn more about the architecture of Columbus see here .
This profile was written in 2006. In 2008 we stumbled across a very useful essay about  Miller. Here are the details: "J.Irwin Miller", in Business People in the News, Vol.1, 1976, p.266-269.  It is a well-written account and it indicates clearly that Miller was a good choice for our first example of a business person who has admirable qualities.