Visiting professor hits the bull's-eye. Schwartz uses his old firm's Brain Darts

Communigator - Spring 2005

By Kelly-Anne Suarez

About 50 students packed into visiting Prof. Phil Schwartz's Advertising Marketing Strategy lecture, though the slots on his roster only totaled 32.

"When you hear there's a professor who had his own ad agency in Miami, it makes people pay attention," advertising senior Jed Oran Cohen said of his former teacher.

Each year, the Freedom Forum Distinguished Visiting Professorship pulls professionals from their natural habitats and places them in classrooms. The position rotates among the College's four departments — advertising, journalism, public relations, and telecommunication.

Endowed by the former Gannett Foundation, the program enhances the College's curriculum by giving students a broader learning base, Dean Terry Hynes said. Potential professors are scouted through connections; the main obstacle being finding a pro whose life permits a 16-week break.

Past visiting professors included Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Prof. Tom Goldstein, Rene "Butch" Meily, MAMC 1979, vice president of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., and CNN's Larry Woods, JM 1963.

Schwartz sold his shares of Turkel Schwartz & Partners in 2002 but said he wishes he left the industry five years earlier.

"Ad agencies hove come to have low regard for advertising and what it can do," the UF alumnus said.

The professor's prognosis is not entirely bleak, however. He said local and regional advertisers possess the potential to swing back the pendulum — an idea he stressed to his students by focusing more on the creative end less on the bottom line. His assignments ranged from scrutinizing Starbucks' lure to marketing commercial space travel.

The collective brainstorming brewing in his classroom was exhilarating, he said, and an accurate simulation of actual boardroom behavior — behavior Schwartz has honed since he left Gainesville 30 years ago. He earned a bachelor's degree in business from UF in 1969, and planned to earn an MBA but was drafted and served two years in the Military Police traveling from South Carolina to Georgia in Vietnam.

In 1972, he returned to Gainesville and his master's plan. The former MP continued keeping watch in his Alligator column "Mind Readings," where he spouted Libertarian ideals and disdain for the then Warrington College of Business Dean Robert Lanzillotti, a member of Nixon's Price Commission.

After earning an MBA, Schwartz bounced around the country dabbling in brand management and advertising.

Six years later, with $500 in the bank, the 39-year-old Schwartz formed his own advertising firm.
Fifteen years after that, the merged Turkel Schwartz & Partners produced Brain Darts, a compilation of the company's work that's now used as a text in art direction classes throughout the country.

Beyond the obvious benefits to having a handy, neatly bound portfolio, Schwartz loves the sound of the book hitting a conference table surrounded by potential clients.

"It shows we're a company of substance," said Schwartz, a member of the Department of Advertising Advisory Council.

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