Jerry Welsh, Welsh
Marketing Associates
Jerry C. Welsh, President of
Welsh Marketing Associates Inc., formed his company early in the
late 1980’s to provide national and global corporations the means
with which to address the marketing and communications issues of
particular interest to corporate senior management. Typically,
these concerns encompass corporate and product positioning,
strategic planning and resource development, marketing and
event-marketing issues, sponsorships and specials events, crisis
management, and innovative advertising and public relations
activities.
Mr. Welsh was previously Senior Executive Vice
President, Marketing and Strategic Development, for the E.F. Hutton
Group, Inc., until its acquisition by Shearson Lehman
Brothers. Prior to Hutton he held the position of Executive
Vice President, Worldwide Marketing and Communications, at American
Express Company where he worked for twelve years.
Mr. Welsh is recognized as the originator of
Cause-related Marketing which he developed as a concept and
service-marked the name while serving as head of Marketing at
American Express. Now widely practiced in the United States
and around the world, this blend of traditional marketing and
philanthropic appeal resulted in the well-known and extraordinarily
successful American Express program on behalf of the Statue of
Liberty restoration effort.
Since its inception and practice at American
Express in the 1980’s, Cause-related Marketing in various forms has
become a global, business-building phenomenon -- one practiced by
many companies -- and is considered to have grown business revenues
and increased market shares for companies, while it has raised
several billion dollars for charity.
He is the first recipient of a Lifetime
Achievement Award (for Cause-related Marketing) from the
International Events Group.
Other notable achievements during Mr. Welsh’s
American Express tenure include the introduction of the Platinum
Card, the successful and award-winning women’s marketing program,
and a worldwide cause-related effort which provided needed funding
for individual national teams during the 1984 Olympics.
Because of his extensive work with events and
sponsorships in general, and with the Olympics in particular, Mr.
Welsh is recognized as a leading authority on event and sponsorship
marketing.
Mr. Welsh also coined the term and practice of
Ambush Marketing, a name given to competitive assaults on
ill-conceived and poorly implemented sponsorships. He has recently
published an article on that subject as well, given the fact that
many have misunderstood what Ambush Marketing is and
isn’t.
In 1989, as President of Welsh Marketing
Associates Inc., Mr. Welsh devised and launched perhaps the largest
single-company event sponsorship in the history of the United
States on behalf of the Philip Morris Companies, Inc. This two-year
event celebrated the 200th Anniversary of the Bill of
Rights. This sponsorship included a 50-state tour of the Bill
of Rights, arguably the largest non-military or disaster-related,
corporate-funded logistical effort ever undertaken in the United
States.
From November, 1995, until December, 1996, Mr.
Welsh dedicated the majority of his free time to running Worldwide
Marketing -- as a consultant -- for Ben & Jerry’s Homemade of
Vermont.
Beginning in the fall of 1996 Mr. Welsh became
engaged extensively in a two-year project for Gateway Inc., the
personal computer marketing company formerly in South
Dakota. This work was designed to further the then-held vision
of Gateway’s becoming a leading seller of personal computers and a
recognized relationship marketer.
In March of 2000, and while retaining his status
as a consultant, Mr. Welsh for six months undertook the leadership
role of the New York office of Wunderman, one of the leading direct
marketers in the world.
Beginning in the fall of 2000 and for the next
two and one-half years, Mr. Welsh worked with the Coca-Cola Company
in the United States on sponsorship, event marketing, and
developing a total cause-branding platform for the
Company.
In the spring of 2003 and continuing through
2004, Mr. Welsh -- again as a consultant -- began to serve as head
of Global Marketing and Fundraising for Special Olympics, a program
operating in 150 countries. His aim was to migrate the
positioning of Special Olympics from one of merely a sports program
to one of a global vehicle for attitude and societal change.
He also wanted to institute an integrated, worldwide marketing
strategy for Special Olympics, one which builds greater awareness
of the organization’s global societal impact while increasing the
organization’s capacity to raise the funds necessary to expand the
Special Olympics Movement around the world. Ending his nearly
full-time relationship with Special Olympics, International, in
January, 2005, he continues his support for the global Special
Olympics Movement by serving as a pro bono consultant to the
organization.
In the course of his work with Special Olympics
in China, Mr. Welsh has become interested in innovative consumer
marketing and branding in that country. In this regard he is
working with corporate clients in China and is responding to
requests in China that Cause-related Marketing be introduced there
in 2005-06.
Mr. Welsh is a frequent and sought-after public
speaker and author of several important ideas involving unique
approaches to marketing, branding, sponsorship strategies,
e-commerce, and corporate communications. His work has
appeared both in on-line publications and in The Harvard Business
Review, and he has been involved with the development of a number
of American Express case studies included in that (and other)
business schools’ marketing curricula.
Prior to joining American Express in 1975, Mr.
Welsh held a variety of university and college teaching and
administrative positions. He received his undergraduate and
graduate education at Vanderbilt University. Mr. Welsh is
fluent in the Russian language and follows closely political and
economic developments in Eastern Europe and in the states
comprising the former Soviet Union.
In his personal time Mr. Welsh is an avid runner
and motorcycle enthusiast. A six-time finisher of the Boston
Marathon, Mr. Welsh was the first person from New York State ever
to complete the Western States 100-Mile
Run.
Features Written by
Jerry Welsh