russia. i live here, and i don't speak a word of russian. so that was my first problem. secondly, the book really follows the story of russia itself in 19 and early 20th century russia through emancipation, to industrialization, to all of the labor strikes, the fall of the czars and of course the russian revolution. and i have never studied russian history, another problem for me. as you probably figured out by now if you have tasted some of the moscow mule, walking in. this book is about a man who made vodka, and i am not much of a drinker. [laughter] >> so the question why would i write this book is a very good one. and the answer simply is it was just too amazing of a story to ignore. when i was the legal affairs editor for businessweek magazine

in 1996, a man came to see me. and he brought with him a long white scroll that he unrolled on a conference room table there and it turned out to be a smirnov family tree going back to the 17 hundreds. and he began to tell me the story of this family who began as serfs and as you probably know search were the lowest of the lows and russia and pyotr smirnov, our hero in the story here, was born a serf, completely uneducated, had absolutely no connections of any kind, grew up in a very rural village. and yet by the end of his life managed to become one of the most successful and prominent merchants in all of russia. he was one of the wealthiest men in russia when he died. and having been born a serf, he ended his life being granted honorary nobility. which was a huge deal at the time. it just did not happen. so as of this man had told me the bare bones of the story, i

felt like this was something i had to find more out about. and he had actually come to see me to tell me about how the smirnov's descendents, some of them, were suing in court in different laces in the world to try to get their trademark and copyright back. they felt they had been taken wrong after them the revolution. and after communism fell, they were trying to get them back. i wrote the story for businessweek. and was just really fascinated by it and continue to be fascinated and followed the story, but for a while didn't really do a whole lot with it. i moved out here. i became the silicon valley bureau chief. i was covering ebay and yahoo. there were other things happening in my life, but then i read a book that you probably are familiar with called seabiscuit. it's a great story about an underdog horse who comes from nothing and and wins it all. it's a wonderful sort of unexpected surprise story, but

what it also is, it's a great lesson in history. you learn about how jockeys live. you learn about the history of horse racing. to learn about all kinds of things above and beyond the story itself. and when i read that book, a lightbulb went off in my head. and i thought that's what i want to do with smirnov. so that's kind of how i got started on all of this. and i would like to read a very short passage for you from the book that i think will demonstrate to you what a surprising like this man had, and why i couldn't get him out of my head. the smell of wet mud hung in the air. moscow had been in a mess of an unusually warm spell. it was already late november, yet dandelions and daisies were poking out of the earth. nurtured by a steady balmy drizzle. that few flakes of snow that had fallen had quickly vanished

leaving cobblestones glistening on the ground. as springlike days wore on it seemed like winter might never come. but it did finally aired as the zipper 1898 arrived at jobes knocked up on moscow like an invading army your snow began to fall before daybreak and continued without interruption. soon, a thick coat of white buried the city. within a day, temperatures dropped another 15 degrees leading rushers and second largest city and it's more typical season state, gray and frigid. little else however was typical that december day. particularly at the corner of skyscraper just past past the cast-iron bridge. a pathway that led directly to lead square and the kremlin. it was 8 a.m., crowd flowed into this neighborhood known as the hub for moscow's surging merchant class. wealthy businessmen arrive with their elegant wives, important government officials and religious leaders left behind other pressing matters to make

an appearance, workers and peasants showed up in droves. spilling out into the street leading to saint john the baptist church. the crush was so dense that movement became almost impossible. horse-drawn transit that seesawed through the sky were forced to stop running as long lines of mourning carriages surrounded the block. at 9 a.m. the bell rang out your snapping the masses to attention. all eyes turn toward a majestic funeral chariot outfitted with a canopy of rich silver bouquet. it was part before the grandest residence on the block. a three-story high magic that was a testament to the architectural beauty cropping up all over russia. the heavy wooden doors parted and he archdeacon from saint john the baptist church emerged, softly reciting prayers. a group carrying a coffin decorated with a wreath made of natural flowers fell into line after him. a choir came out and singing the holy god prayer followed by a dozen workers. each carried a pillow with

sacred medals per by the deceased during an extraordinary life. other church elders and dignitaries followed next. at last, a coffin emerged great in fabric made of gold brocade and raspberry velvet. it was the second day of december. and his elegant tribute was not for a czar or a high ratings minister or a military chief. the man inside the long box was pyotr smirnov, arguably the most famous vodka maker in the world. >> so most of the information from that passage came from the newspapers that covered smirnov's funeral. when i read about that, i don't know about you but i was pretty amazed that they made such a fuss out of a vodka maker. so i really made it my mission to find out why. and i think you will find it, hopefully as fascinating as i did. one of the things about smirnov

was that he was really an extraordinary marketer. when he began making his vodka in the 1860s, there were literally now since a vodka makers russia. at the time there were no protections for brands, and it wasn't like that you are going to advertise because most people were illiterate. and you couldn't really make flashy labels. that was very expensive, and smirnov didn't have the money to do that anyway. but what he did do and what he did know was his customer. he had been a serf himself. and he knew what kinds of things people responded to. so very, very early on in his career as a vodka maker, smirnov went to a place in moscow in the market. the market was one of the smelliest, crime is the most disgusting places in all of moscow. people would serve or trying to sell rotten food there and they would keep it warm but actually sitting on the pots that the food was in.

that so they kept warm and that's only kept the food warm and one of the journalists at the time called it a moving rotten pit. so you can imagine what this place is like. but smirnov went there because people also came there to get day labor. and he rounded up 15 men and he brought them back to his vodka factory. he sat down at a long table. he gave them food. he gave them vodka. and then he slapped three rubles down in front of each man and he said here's what i want you to do. i want you to fan out in moscow and go to the pubs. i want you to walk into the pubs and i want you to demand smirnov onto. and when the waiter tells you they have never heard of smirnov anke, let me get you something else, i want you to make a scene. and i want you to make a loud scenes so that everybody hears you say how could you possibly not have this extraordinary vodka, that's the best vodka that is being made anywhere. you must serve it. and call a manager in and make

sure everybody hears you. then leave. and go to the next pub and repeat the scene all over again. so these men did that, and as the story goes, within literally days orders for spare not vodka were flowing in. but smirnov was smart. he wasn't done. he called the men back to his factory and he said okay, moscow is good but rush is a big country. i want you to get on the trains and i want you to get off at every single stop and i want you to do the same thing there. and literally within an extraordinarily short period of time, smirnov watkin was one of the top producers of vodka in all of russia. however, he was doing very well with the masses, people came from background ideas, but he really, really long to be accepted by the aristocracy. he wanted more than anything else really to be the trend for purveyor. and they were not hanging out at

the pubs in moscow and in the countryside. these people were at restaurants and very swishy clubs. so he had to figure out something else. and what smirnov did essentially, also quite brilliant, he started first and enter competitions, international competitions outside of russia. so he went to vienna and he went to paris and he went to philadelphia and chicago. and he entered his liquors in these competitions. and he started to rack up some awards. and there was nothing that russians alike better at the time then for western europeaneuropeans to acknowledge that one of theirs was actually doing something worthwhile. so that was the first way he got some attention for himself. he racked up these awards. but what he also did and what he also had to do was to show himself to be not just a greedy businessman. and russia at the time, as you can well imagine, merchants were not considered honorary folks. there was a sense throughout

society that you could not be a successful businessman and rescue worker ought. and you were taking advantage of the people and you are doing all kinds of things that were not appropriate. so in order to make them selves i guess some people had said to atone for their scent of wealth, merchants gave a lot of their money away. they were big philanthropists. so smirnov being a very smart philanthropist, he didn't get his money away to just any charity. he actually went out and saw the charities that does our favorite. he went out and saw the charities that have been started by the aristocrats and had aristocrats on their board. so he was very, very smart in making these connections with the leaders in russia at the time. so by the time 1886 came around and smirnov applied to be czars purveyor he became the czars purveyor. and this was a very, very big

thing. the czars had purveyor for everything. steinway provided the czars pianos. singer provided the czars sewing machines. there was even able to leachman. you could literally name anything and the czar had a purveyor. being a vodka purveyor was a very, very big deal. so what happens to smirnov though is that he gets to be so good at what he does, that he almost becomes a lightning rods for the debate on alcohol and russia. so alcoholism still today, problem and russia, then as well a problem in russia. and smirnov being so prominent by then become somebody that is associated with the drinking problem. people began to write about him. of people you may have heard of, for example, anton chekhov, a wonderful playwright, wrote a

column in his early years. and he called smirnov by name and other watchmakers satan's number of blood. so he didn't mince words at all. another critic was tolstoy. and tolstoy, i didn't notice know this, but i did learn this, he was a very prominent tempers advocate in russia and he devoted much of his writing and much of his talking and much of his energy to the sobriety movement. in fact, there's a great story about tolstoy calling people together in his village, putting a sheet of paper down on a big table, basically a document and telling all the men i want you to sign this document. the document basically said i'm going to give up drinking. i'm going to give up smoking. i'm going to give up all of these terrible vices, because tolstoy really believe that it didn't your conscience and that made russian people do things they wouldn't otherwise do. and that was why russia wasn't more productive and successful.

so he got all of these people to sign this, and that he actually had a ditch dug and he made people come with her flasks and a little tobacco pouches and anything else they could possibly get them and they had to throw it in the ditch and then he buried it. and that was that. of course, this did not work. but, it was a good effort. it was a good attempt. and tolstoy kept up his rants about the alcohol problem for years. in fact, i found out that he was one of the people who design, what would have been one of the very first alcohol warning labels. and it was like a skull and cross bones and it just had poisoned. [laughter] >> but they rejected it as though it never happened. but tolstoy was effective in raising the profile of the alcohol problem in russia. and as a result, the czar at the end of the 19th century instituted a vodka monopoly, decided the government was

better suited to taking care of the vodka economy than individuals. and that was a huge blow as you can well imagine to smirnov business. although not fatal. they did some other things that allow them to stay afloat. he sold wines. he sold cognac. he actually sold vinegar. and were able to stay afloat. but smirnov sons were not smirnov. they inherited the business. and they had issues of their own. they had grown up very privileged. there was nothing they didn't get. they had a wonderful education. they were exposed to all of the finer things in life. and they kind of like it that way. smirnov's oldest son was probably the most like smirnov himself, and he predominately that the business until his death in 1910. but the other brothers had issue. one brother fought alcoholism all his life and was never really interested in the business. another brother was much more interested in theater and horse racing and it sold his rights in

the business. another brother was kind of a rebel, and he actually did the unthinkable. he invested about a million dollars and a liberal leaning newspaper that had a for an editor. so that was a really bad thing to do. but smirnov at the time. so the suns really struggled and of course the russian revolution happened. and everything in russia was nationalized, all private businesses were nationalized. and the smirnov suffered like a lot of people did at the time, you know, losing really everything. one of smirnov sons, vladimir, was put into a bolshevik prison. he was sentenced to death because he was a capitalist. and he was lined up actually on the wall five different times with the firing squad right in front of him. and they would say ready, aim, and then they would break out in laughter. this was psychological torture. they did this five times. and miraculously and truly the

only reason why the smirnov brand survives today is because the prison that vladimir and was liberated. so he was able in 1919 to play russia. he went to western europe, try to reestablish the brand, not particularly successfully, but he did try and ended up licensing the brand to a russian immigrant who was living in the united states so in 1934 smirnov became the first vodka that was produced and sold in the united states. it was not a success. . .

and i don't know how many of you tasted the moscow mule before you sat down, but they invented the moscow mule and the was a combination of ginger beer, juice and smirnoff vodka and was incredibly successful in part because john martin borrowed some of smirnovs old tricks. he took one of the very first polaroid cameras and went into the bar in l.a. and he took one picture of the bartender making

the moscow mule and he gave it to the bartender. he took a second picture and he walked to the next bar, and he said pay commodores competition is making this great drink. it's called the moscow mule. everybody's drinking it, why aren't you making it? so pretty soon the moscow mule became an extremely popular drink in the united states and smear of took off in the united states and i find it amazing. smirnov was born in 1831. he died in 1898, and today smirnov is the best selling in the world, the number one, the most valuable brand, spirits brand in the world. its ubiquitous as you might imagine james bond vodka of choice. how much better degette than that. so the story, it's kind of an amazing story. it has relevance to today. we know the product. there's things happening in russia reminiscent of some of the things that happened in the

book and as i hope he will read and that's why i had to write this book. so i hope you'll like it and i would be delighted to answer any questions you might have and i have been told they would like you to come ask questions in the microphone. so, thank you very much. [applause] >> all right. had the smirnov family seen the book and if they have what are their feelings about it? >> i don't actually know if they've seen it. the book has not been translated into russian. it's going to be in portuguese, hungarian and other languages but it's not going to be in russian. and the descendants i met with when i went to russia only spoke russian. so, we are working on potentially seeing if we can get them the book and seeing what they would think to be honest they were not particularly enthusiastic about my project.

at that time i started this the lawsuit was still going on. and when i went to russia and met with smirnov's great granddaughter, no matter what i said, i could not convince her that i was an independent journalist pursuing a story that i found fascinating. she assumed i had been hired by the company that owns the smirnov brand now and that i was writing the book to help them win the lawsuit. so just the idea of an independent journalist didn't work and to be fair diyala shia wasn't excited talking to me there's a we spent a lot of times in the archives. >> do you think that the smirnov vodka to the tastes anything like his smirnov vodka or do you have any clue as to what that might have been like? >> well, you know, i have been asked that question of what and

as i said i am not a big drinker so it's a little hard for me to tell. but initially my understanding was they were making smirnov vodka the way they always had. some 300 recipes that survived the revolution and were taken to western europe, but when i put the question to diagio they didn't make it quite clear so i am not sure. some of the recipes the, the flavored vodka and thing smirnov made during his time. he actually would have done well in the current world because he was a fanatic about flash and local and natural. he used to have herbs and fruit wagonloads of them brought into his factory in moscow and that was how he infused hisj)ñ vodka. he never used essences orñéc artificial flavorings of any kind. those are only introduced later.

>> can you talk about the language barrier you had not speaking russian and how you got into the archives and how you find people to help you get the information that you were looking to translate into english? >> well, i was very, very lucky because i found the world's most wonderful woman to be my researcher and a translator and she stayed with me the whole time. she's a russian living in moscow and is extraordinary. i could not have done this without her. and i did find that on a needed -- not only for the language issues but for the cultural issues as an american it was tough going in to some of these archives and explaining what i wanted to do and getting over some of the prejudices of my being an american and she obviously didn't have any of that problem, so i relied on her hugely and i was also fortunate that there's actually a smirnov

fault car archive if you can believe it at harvard university so i got access to hundreds of documents there and thankfully most of them were already translated so it was kind of a lucky break for me and there's actually some stuff columbia university and i got some things out of berkeley so i was able to do some of the research here which really helped put was my researcher in moscow. i vision for what i wanted to do in this book so i was able to funnel questions to her and then she would go out into the countryside and deal with -- >> [inaudible] >> how did i find her? there's actually a woman in san francisco who is a friend of a friend who is here and i talked to her about -- she deals a lot with the russian community and immigrants to the area, and she actually knew the woman who turned out to be my researcher

from her efforts, and she put me in touch with this woman not because she thought she would be my researcher but she might have connections with somebody who would be my researcher but when we met in moscow and talked she was excited, as excited as i was and agreed to put her current job and work with me as a researcher so it was really so lucky. how much of your book addresses the current situation with the trademark suit or effort that's making and what is the basis i'm curious from a business point of view what is the basis of the claim of the family given that the brand was literally sold earlier as you mentioned and what do you think is going to happen with the current litigation? >> welcome that particular piece

of litigation was settled in 2006. diageo, the company that owns the smirnoff brand agreed to pay company that was claiming the brand in russia money so that diageo not only now imports its smirnoff into russia but all the liquor that it makes. and the family was not a part of that settlement. the family still is not involved in making the fault, or any aspect of the business. i'm sorry, the second part of your question was what? the basis for the loss. okay. >> [inaudible] >> yeah, exactly fascinating. so among the other thing it was sort of multipronged as most litigation is. but one of their chief claims was vladimir, the son who escapes to russia and license the brand didn't have the right to do that because he had already sold his shares in the business to his brother, which

he had done before the revolution. but that brother died, two of the other brothers died and one of them, because he still lived in russia, couldn't revive the brand so there was nobody around to revive the plan put their claim is that was wrongfully sold and he didn't have the right to do it therefore it should revert back to the family. they also planned deception, false advertising because they felt like people assumed smirnoff was still the russian smirnov and in fact hadn't been made in russia for many decades. so it had a lot of aspects to it and they end up changing the label somewhat and some other things to clarify that point. >> linda himelstein is the former legal affairs editor and silicon valley bureau chief for business week. she is also worked for "the wall street journal," "legal times" and the san francisco reader. kepler's books in menlo park california hosted the event. for more information, visit keplers.com.

miriam greenburg is the author brand in new york our city in crisis was sold to the world is the book. profs miriam greenberg, when you think of the 50's and 60's what do you think of? >> well, i feel that world war ii in the post -- new york in the post world war ii was in the pre-eminence in the united states and its fortunes were rising for a time. i a famous kind of working-class city to quote another book by joshua freeman. it was a city that had a lot of business during world war ii and its industries had been employed in many many new yorkers and was also a growing media capital. it was expanding its office

infrastructure. it was growing in terms of the sighting of the united nations. it was getting a lot of international attention and a new way politically and it was part of, you know, it was seen internationally as the kind of capital of research of the u.s. following world war ii. yes, very much so so the star was rising in that period. >> what happened to new york in the 1970's? >> well, it's a complicated question that has global, national, local reasoning behind it. political, economic, cultural. it was a period of crisis on many levels, and it was a period that began in the 1960's and it really reached the mid-70s that had to do it the local level

with mismanagement of funds, and a fiscal crisis of the state that the lead to the city technically going bankrupt and when i say mismanagement of funds and this is a complex story which historians debate it had to do with on the one hand the city government spending enormous amount to build massive amounts of high end private-sector office space and residential buildings as well as maintaining its level of social spending at a time when revenues were shrinking and so that created a crisis for the city's budget. on the other hand new york wasn't alone. there were many cities -- there was a period that countries in the world were dealing with global inflation as a result of recession and inflation

combination, the global oil crisis. so it was a complex time and it was a time when the fortunes of cities in particular given the retrenchment of the federal government were put in this very difficult position. they were having to find new sources of revenue. >> was new york losing population in the 50's, 60's, 70's? >> nope. well, there was suburbanization going on since the late 19th century in new york in the surrounding suburbs. one thing that was occurring was the rise of suburbs more widely in the united states and the expansion of suburbs and so there was lots of population to the growing sunbelt region the was going on since the 50's, so the west and southwest of the united states and the sunbelt was also the suburbanized sunbelt was the base of a growing more conservative political movement in the

country, which saw new york despite in this period its strength salles eight ns reflecting an old guard for of pacific populism if you will, that the republican party, the right-wing republican party was trying to supplant. and so, new york was losing population to some extent as was finding itself in competition policy areas competition with other cities that were more and, you know, in that republican order. >> in your book, branding york cowboys the crisis was sold to the world, you talk about the crisis of the 70's and new york's response. how severe was the crisis and what was the response? >> the crisis of the 70's was severe, it went into technical

bankruptcy. as a result of which -- and so i think the crisis on the one hand was produced by these, you know, local, national, global circumstances but also was produced by the reaction, so it was a crisis that not only be fell new york but was also produced as a result of the reaction to it. so it involved the imposition of very harsh austerity measures which cut back social spending on things like, you know, fire protection and sanitation and education and vital city services, lead off thousands of public sector workers, like to be increased exodus of people in corporations from, and businesses from new york as a result of these cutbacks. so, it was very, very severe, yeah. and to this day i think the reaction by the city, the degree of, you know, some people might call the kind of draconian severity of the reaction has

been questioned and, you know, i think -- >> why did he mean by the draconian reaction? >> i think there was a kind of calculus that, you know, where the priorities should be placed by the city. i think the city center we decided that under intense pressure from the ford administration, you know, there's the famous daily news headline, new york city dropped dead, which is something for was an only saying to new york but many cities he didn't literally save the federal administration was saying in a sense that cities were no longer getting the kind of resources they got under for instance the model cities program under the 60's and the kind of municipal funding they once got. and there was intense pressure on the city to kind of privatize and to downsize its public spending and to increase its competitiveness and to attract new investments as opposed to

taking a road which would have involved trying to, you know, similar to the keynesian approach of the middle part of the century and similar to what obama is talking about investing in a stimulus package that could have grown the middle class and working-class of the city. i think there was a calculus that what was -- if one had to be lost, what could be lost was the kind of quality-of-life for the working and middle class of the city in order to bring in new funds into the city in the form of new corporate headquarters to worry some, and new upper-middle-class into the city. and so, there was a whole restructuring of the priorities and ultimately, you know, budgetary priorities and ultimately new forms of incentives were provided for investment and relocation and tourism. at the same time that money was cut from social spending for existing residents and workers in the city. >> and what was the effect today

of those changes in your view? >> well, i think it created what some people have started to call already in the 1980's a kind of dual city. a city that was far more divided and on equal between glasses. it created a city that was far more focused on the center on manhattan as opposed to the outer boroughs, which lost out in this calculus, so a kind of new form of centralization. i think it created a city that what i focus on in the book is how old marketing and media were used in concert with these new priorities, these new political and economic priorities and so it also created a new imaginary identity for new york. no longer was it this famed working-class capital. now it became really represented

as a more elite luxury type city in a city that could be, you know, prominently placed an advertisement in association with products that wanted that kind of cache. >> and in fact, in your book, branding new york, you talk about a very famous brand, i heart ny. what's the effect of that? >> i think that campaign had two phases and the initial phase of that campaign, this famous campaign designed by the artistic director of new york magazine and agreed graphic designer in his own right -- i think that it really stimulated a kind of solidarity with new york and with new yorkers and made people think about what were study essential qualities of the record that they loved and which they would be sorry to lose because, you know, when i say there was a severe crisis i mean there was media and there was a lot of hype nationwide to the glee of some people that new

york was going to cease to exist. and there were kind of satires about new york sinking into the ocean, you know, the famous scene in planet of the apes and the final -- the final episode where, you know, you see the torch of the statue of liberty rising above the sand. so there are a lot of caricatures of the city in representations of new york in which the city ceases to mix this, and i love new york, i heart ny, really responded to what was an anxiety of that for new yorkers. many new yorkers for i heart ny t-shirts and increased the campaign as well as amongst the nation and had people identifying with the i heart ny that there was something in the kind of our vanity and cosmopolitan nature of the grittiness of the city i think blazer and i write about this was pleading with the font of the campaign, the kind of gritty

and softness of the heart and position and the european newspaper, sorry, print and television campaign featured prominently broadway stars and broadway shows from cats, from a chorus line, from some of what remained to be the great musicals and productions that many of which originated in the 70's and early 80's and, annie and other things and there were characters from those performances gave their services for free and there was the creativity and vitality of new york association with broadway and times square so that was the kind of first phase. i think the second phase this was a campaign that was launched by the state and ma the city so

what was called, what now is called the empire state corporation, was the department of commerce at the time, they kind of shifted focus largely away from this intense personal identification with new york and a kind of invocation of the crisis itself to much more bland imagery of shopping and downtown finance and the skyline of the city in association with the natural seascape that you could have in the rest of new york state. and i think that was kind of part of the planning all along. i think that the early phase was in the midst of crisis people wanted the dedication and later the more business development side of the campaign was what was focused on. so, you know, from the beginning, i love new york was kind of the front stage of this deeper restructuring i was talking about, and that became

more and more clear as the campaign went on. and i actually also talking to book about a campaign less publicized involved instead of having broadway stars perform, and having ceo's of major corporations talk about why they love new york and they say, you know, there is a 30% tax break for relocating to the state, i love new york. there's all these kind of deals that corporations could get was the reason that they loved new york. >> so what is new york's brand today? >> well, new york's brand, i think that i love new to work was very successful in many ways and held up as one of the most recognized city marketing campaigns globally and was copied enormously. so much so and that was actually allowed in the early phases, it wasn't copy written until later

and was allowed to kind of fire early travel, and i think there was an effort following 9/11 to read brand of the city. there's a feeling amongst and much more professionalized code word of branders the brand value of i heart ny had been watered down and they needed a new resident kind of brand in order to do the kind of economic development business development they envisioned. and so, they have free branded immediately following 9/11 with very patriotic imagery and given the loss of the world trade center towers which had figured prominently in a lot of the commercials, the skyline in particular of, you know, this second phase of the i love new york campaign that had to be completely revised and there was intensive focus on the statue of liberty and on the association of a kind of patriotic red white

and blue in affinity logo with the statue of liberty so a kind of triumphant resurgent patriotic image. with bloomberg there's been a shift again in an interesting way. blumberg has spoken at out the need to see new york as a luxury city again and so there has been a lot of marketing along the lines of, you know, that was done in association with the effort to attract the olympics to new york that was done in association with the republican national convention that has been done in association with events that have been hosted by a much larger beefed up professionalized marketing apparatus that has been produced under his administration. so there's been a lot of luxury images that have been produced. and there has also been a new campaign called this is new york, which interestingly

associates that luxury image with a very kind of utopia in vision of the diversity that kind of hearkens back to the early days of i love new york and i think that that took the position of a kind of longing, utopian longing with this luxury oriented, elite oriented modification as one of the things that makes these campaigns so successful and allows people not to sort of thing so critically about them as i think they should. >> as a sociology professor at you see syracuse why are you writing a book about branding new york? >> i recently relocated to syracuse, not that i wouldn't have been interested otherwise by lived in new york 20 years before i moved to california, and so, over the course of living in new york i became, you know, very fascinated with the sociology of the city, the industry of the