Jack Morton, founder of Jack Morton Worldwide, the global experiential marketing agency that is producing the opening and closing ceremonies of this summer's 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, died last week at his home in Vero Beach, Fla., at the age of 94, the company reported.
Morton founded Jack Morton Productions in 1939 in Washington “with a belief that world-class entertainment could have a profound impact at corporate and association events,” the company said. He foresaw 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.
Morton's company, now Jack Morton Worldwide, is now 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. 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.
"Jack Morton leaves a profound legacy at this agency and in the industry as a whole," said Josh McCall, CEO of Jack Morton Worldwide. "He was a terrific communicator and entrepreneur with an instinctive understanding of how businesses could integrate entertainment to better inspire their most important audiences. He was also a wonderful human being with a great sense of humor and an enormous love of life."
