• June 28, 2004

Jack Morton, founder of Jack Morton Worldwide (a subsidiary of Interpublic Group), died June 28 at his home in Vero Beach, Florida, at the age of 94. Jack Morton is best known as an entrepreneur in business communications who pioneered and perfected the integration of headline entertainment at conventions and corporate events. He founded Jack Morton Productions in 1939 in Washington, DC, with a belief that world-class entertainment could have a profound impact at corporate and association events. He had a prescient sense that, in the years following World War II, American businesses would expand the scope and scale of the events they organized for their customers and employees. Mr. Morton's company, now Jack Morton Worldwide, is today a global agency with over 600 employees and locations throughout the United States, Europe and Asia-Pacific. While it continues to produce large-scale corporate events for major companies like McDonald's, General Motors and Avon, the agency also creates experiential marketing programs targeting consumers, which in the age of TiVo are increasingly seen as an important way to engage hard-to-reach audiences. The agency's consumer experiential marketing clients include Sports Illustrated and Microsoft. Additionally, the agency's public events division is one of the world's most prominent producers of arena-scale events, such as the upcoming opening and closing ceremonies of the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.