Consulting: Hodock Group

OVERVIEW

We are the perfect blend: two academics that definitely know their marketing theory but also won their marketing spurs in senior management positions at such blue chip organizations as Coca-Cola, Vanguard Group, Campbell Soup, Gillette and Johnson & Johnson. Our preference is to work with senior management. We are results oriented: show up, solve the problem, and get out of the way. We are not interested in hanging around forever like many management consulting organizations.

The following traits are typical of our project work with clients:

Senior management backgrounds, high level consulting experience with strong academic credentials.
Collaborative partner with clients.
Managing partners involved in all projects from problem definition to action plan implementation.
Have a dream team of associates who work with us on certain assignments involving creative (concept boards, etc.) and marketing research.
Have a toolbox of proven techniques that makes things happen.
Accept only assignments that have meaningful value to organizations.

HOW WE OPERATE

We can work on a per diem or retainer basis depending on the needs of our clients. In some instances, we work on a project cost basis, where associates are used in the areas of

creative development or marketing research. All of our associates are proven veterans of the marketing wars. They have significant experience with premier corporations and advertising agencies. The Managing Partners Calvin Hodock and Tony Adams direct our associates in all aspects of client projects. Clients always get the A Team. Hodock and Adams carefully select the associates that best fit client needs on individual projects.

We provide retainer, per diem and consulting services in addition to workshop and seminar facilitation and speeches in the following areas:

New product audits
New product knowledge data bases by product category
New product ideation processes
Two day new product workshops

MEET THE MANAGING PARTNERS

CALVIN HODOCK

Calvin L. Hodock is former Chairman of the Board of the American Marketing Association, the world’s largest professional marketing society. He is a nationally recognized authority on marketing and product innovation. His marketing credentials were earned at the Gillette Company, Bayer, and Johnson & Johnson in senior management positions. He was also partner at Comart/KLP, one of the country’s largest marketing service agencies at the time. Hodock currently is on the Board of Directors of NuVim, Inc- - a startup company marketing a line of healthy beverages to Wal-Mart and major supermarket accounts on the East Coast.

Hodock is a full time faculty member at Berkeley College teaching marketing courses at their Middlesex and Garrett Mountain campuses. He also teaches an advertising course at New York University and has been a guest lecturer at several colleges, including the Wharton School

During his stewardship of the American Marketing Association, Hodock created the prestigious AMA Edison Award presented annually to American corporations for product innovation excellence. During a twelve-year period, he reviewed Edison submissions for literally thousands of new products and services from America’s elite corporations. Some of this material, not available in the public domain, was used in his new book Why Smart Companies Do Dumb Things. He became a heralded new product guru widely quoted in the press as a result of the Edison experience.

Hodock’s involvement with the Edison Awards resulted in appearances on CBS, CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg, numerous radio stations in local markets, and print media, including publications like The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, San Jose Mercury. Brandweek, Advertising Age, Promo Magazine, and Marketing News. Numerous universities and professional organizations throughout the country, such as 3M and American Gas Association Financial Forum, have heard his thought-provoking lectures on marketing and innovation strategies.

Hodock has formed with Tony Adams the perfect blend consultancy: two academics who know their marketing theory but also have worked in the trenches for blue chip corporations as marketing executives and consultants. Clients get the best of both worlds.

ANTHONY J. ADAMS

Anthony J. Adams ( referred as Tony among his legions of friends and colleagues ), after a “first career” in business, joined the faculty of the Wharton School at Pennsylvania in September 1994. Since that time, he has taught a number of undergraduate and MBA marketing courses, including advertising, new products, and marketing principles. He also taught at Villanova (MBA), St Joseph’s (Executive MBA) and an MBA course at Cheung Kong University in Shanghai, China.

Mr. Adams was previously Vice President ( Principal ) at The Vanguard Group, the nation’s # 1 mutual fund family, Director of Strategic Marketing Research at the Coca-Cola Company, and Vice President of Marketing Research at Campbell Soup.

Our colleague Tony was the founder of the prestigious “David Ogilvy Award” for the Advertising Research Foundation, recognizing the role of marketing research in the creation of advertising. His other affiliations are varied and impressive: Chairman of the Marketing Advisory Committee of the US Census, past Chairman of the Board of the Advertising Research Foundation, former Chairman of the Research Committee and a member of the Advertising Management Committee of the Association of National Advertisers, and former editor of American Marketing Association’s Marketing Research Magazine.

Adams is a compelling public speaker and a widely quoted marketer in the media. The late David Ogilvy wrote about Adams, “My admiration for you, professionally and personally, has no bounds. Faith Popcorn referred to Adams as “gutsy and creative” in her book Clicking. Since he is a graduate of the Wharton School, he has returned to his alma mater to dispense his marketing moon dust to future generations of marketers.