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Jack Goldsmith
Year of induction: 2001
Bio:
Spending ten minutes with Jack Goldsmith is like taking a class on modern advertising and communications. Have lunch with him and you'll learn more about the drivers and influences of marketing than you could from any textbook. Spend any part of a week or month with him and you'll be enriched for life.
Jack's gentle style is deceiving. For behind his easy smile and sparkling eyes lies the mind of a true genius. One who has spent five decades making marketing history and nurturing the talents of countless individuals.
Jack's life began modestly enough in Turtle Creek, outside of Pittsburgh. His family would later move to Squirrel Hill at a time when a guy who stands five-foot-even on his tiptoes could letter in varsity basketball.
Following a 10-month hitch in the Navy in 1946, Jack went to Pitt on the GI bill and earned a degree in English. From Pitt Jack joined Milton K. Susman & Associates, where among other things, he met another young, energetic guy named Lou Cardamone. Together they would start their own agency in 1955.
Jack and Lou's goal was to be different from the other agencies around town. They believed the way to do that was to offer a number of services - marketing, advertising, research and consulting. To package their concept they took the first letter from each discipline and named the agency MARC & Company.
MARC's beginnings were pretty humble, but the timing couldn't have been better. It was the early days of television and Jack saw the potential of this new medium to turn one night's advertising into the next day's sales.
With a car dealer association and a lumberyard called Busy Beaver as clients, MARC was off and running. Later the firm would add Kelly & Cohen, a local appliance store, and a few small manufacturers.
In 1960, Jack started working with the Pittsburgh franchisee of a new hamburger concept. Over the next 17 years, MARC and McDonalds would partner to create and market innovations like the Big Mac, McDonald's breakfast day-part and others which today are the foundation of the global company's success.
With the McDonald's experience under his belt, Jack went to work on a new fast food client - Arby's. MARC's work with Arby's over almost a decade ranged from regional to national to international. The agency even designed Arby's cowboy hat logo that is still in use today.
No need to wonder where MARC's retail focus came from. It was Jack who envisioned an agency that could generate immediate sales and build image at the same time. And it was Jack's work and creativity that would eventually become MARC USA, one of the top 25 agencies in the United States with just under $700 million in billings.
From hamburgers to home centers, amusement parks to apparel, Jack has influenced the way we eat, shop, dress and live. He is a true, honest and genuine giant who cherishes every experience and everybody in his life. In turn, the people of MARC cherish Jack -- the man, the friend, the storyteller and the mentor. Jack is bigger than life and almost all of him is heart.
Henry Miller once wrote, "The real leader has no need to lead - he is content to point the way." Thanks, Jack, for always pointing the way.
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