Alan Quasha Report

As the director of I-Behavior, one of the world’s leading direct marketing ad agency, Alan Quasha must keep his finger on the pulse of this powerful form of advertising. But what is direct marketing?

There are two parts to direct marketing. One aspect is when advertising reaches consumers directly, without any intervening media. This is usually achieved using mail through the post office, e-mail ads, or telemarketing done over the telephone.

The second aspect of direct marketing involves “direct response” advertising, which consists of causing a specific “call-to-action” such as when an advertisement asks the consumer to “call a free number” or to “visit a website,” which is a trackable, quantifiable response, with disregard to the medium.
Although Lester Wunderman first used the term “direct marketing” in 1967, the practice has been in use since the invention of the typewriter in 1867, exactly 100 years previously.

Alan Quasha is the director of an innovative company known as I-Behavior. This company was founded by Lester Wunderman, who is presently the Chairman of the Board of Directors, where he presides over the world’s leading global direct marketing advertising agency.

I-Behavior was founded in 1958 and was original called Wunderman, Ricotta & Kline.
In the year 1967 Mr. Wunderman addressed an audience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, (MIT) in which he coined the term “Direct Marketing” and defined it.

He has led the growth and development, practical and theoretical of the direct marketing industry and has been recognized for his contribution to this field. He was elected to the Direct Marketing Associations’s Hall of Fame in 1983. In 1998 he was also elected to the Advertising Hall of Fame.

Advertising Age named Lester Wunderman as one of the “Top 100 People in Advertising.”

The Brain Trauma Foundation does amazing research to improve the outcome of Traumatic Brain Injury patients around the world. One fascinating area of recent research is their examination of reaction times. BTF has a research project with experts from Cornell, UC Berkeley and UCSF, together with a grant from the James S. McDonnell Foundation, to look at possible links between reaction time problems and subtle brain shear injuries.

So far, research studies have shown that there is a correlation between subtle shear injuries correlating with attention and memory difficulties for those who have experienced traumatic brain injuries.

The problem with many of these tests is that attention can chance in an instant and the reaction time tests may miss these fluctuations. BTF, where Alan Quasha is the Chairman, has developed and published a unique test that uses eye tracking variables to evaluate attention. This system can be used to evaluate attention after sports concussions, mild TBI, and more with quick, on-the-spot evaluations.

As reported recently in the Wall Street Journal, researchers have recently found an amazing link. They believe they’ve found that many people with alcoholism and homelessness actually suffered brain injuries or had a long-forgotten blow to the head.

Certainly, it’s already accepted that traumatic head injuries can lead to cognitive and behavioral problems. What many people hadn’t realized or thought of before this study is that a severe past blow to the head can be an unrecognized source of social and vocational issues.

The Brain Trauma Foundation, with Chairman Alan Quasha, works to increase knowledge about brain trauma through research, fundraising and other avenues.

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