If you were at a kids pool in the 1960s (or my wife on Lyford Cay, Bahamas in about 1968, photo at right), you would likely see toddlers swimming about with little bubble floats on their backs. In some cases they were plain styrofoam, but in many cases they were more stylish and fabric covered [...]

[Read more →]

One of the most venerable names in American inventing and entrepreneurship is Powell Crosley (1886-1961), an innovator who is credited with the first economy car, the first fax machine and the first lighted baseball field. Pictured here is the Crosley car, seen at an auto show on St. Armand’s Circle in Sarasota. Crosley was one [...]

[Read more →]

Israel does it. Virginia does it. Britain does it. Italy does it. They even do it on Marco Island, where old native Calusa artifacts helps to define an image of the city, and the Southwest Florida kingdom that they used to rule. It’s archeology, and it’s a very under-used weapon in tourism and place-branding. Most [...]

[Read more →]

SARASOTA – At the Mote Marine Aquarium here, there is a small cabinet of shark repellent brands. During World War II, the Navy tried to come up with ideas, and numerous brands were launched. They didn’t survive. Apparently, certain copper compounds do chase away sharks, but there has never been a definitive product that proved [...]

[Read more →]

MIAMI – There could not have been a more perfect Florida ambassador, and airline, than National Airlines. When the “Sunshine Airline” merged into Pan American World Airways in 1980, a uniquely Florida institution was lost. Arguably, it was the only airline that promoted a state as its marketing position and achieved national prominence with that [...]

[Read more →]

We get so obsessed with technology in advertising that we forget that it is still advertising. So it is great to see it when a simple advertising concept arrives. One such concept is Sarasota’s I Pedal Ads, a bicycle-powered billboard. In most areas, zoning and sign restrictions have become so severe that there are fewer [...]

[Read more →]

SARASOTA – Many of us can recall when IHOP wasn’t cool. Somewhere between 1980 and 1990, the chain got into the category of undesirable. It was so much so that the chain became a joke; comedienne Paula Poundstone’s “IHOP: It was a dream, I made it happen” routine about working at an IHOP came to [...]

[Read more →]

WINTER HAVEN – Cypress Gardens Adventure Park is thankfully ditching its disastrous foray into becoming a theme park, and will rename itself Cypress Gardens with an adjacent Splash Island Water Park. We wrote about the Cypress Gardens closing on Nov. 17 and the last day under old ownership for the park. Read our post entitled [...]

[Read more →]

PALM BEACH – Those search for defunct colognes and perfumes often have a hard time. An essay in The Wall Street Journal By André Aciman tells of his search for Aria Di Palma, a cologne his father wore at a New York store called Battaglia. Aciman found the cologne, after a long search, at the [...]

[Read more →]

PALM BEACH, NEW YORK – We all think we know the story of Lilly Pulitzer, of how she opened up a juice stand in Palm Beach, started printing up some fabric, sold it as skirts, and turned it into the fashion icon that it is today, with a little help from former schoolmate Jackie Kennedy. [...]

[Read more →]