Calvin Hodock is the former Chairman of the American Marketing Association. He is the founder and CEO of the Hodock Group, a consulting firm that has provided assistance to companies such as Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, and Campbell Soup. In 2007, he published the best-selling book, Why Smart Companies Do Dumb Things — How to Double the Bottom Line By Avoiding 8 Common Blunders in New Product Development. He is Professor of Marketing at the Larry L. Luing School of Business at Berkeley College. He also teaches courses on advertising at New York University.
The text focuses on a major approach to life style analysis: analysis of American life style by observation of a sequence of events. Hodock reviews important changes in the distributions system, demonstrating how they are both the cause and effect of changes in life styles. He closes with current and potential future developments in life styles, showing how these developments will affect distribution systems.