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Rich Moret Bio

Rich has spent more than 40 years at advertising agencies.  But along the way, he has also taught English in high school, marketing in college and was the first VISTA volunteer in New York City.

After graduating with a B.A. in English from Amherst College, where he won the annual poetry award, Rich moved to Chicago and used his poetry talent to land his first job as an advertising copywriter.  Soon after, he was offered a dream copywriting job at an advertising agency in Hawaii — where he was also schooled in account service, media placement and billing by Dave Park (later to become president of DDB - LA).  During his five years in the Aloha State, Rich worked with many major hotels, tourist attractions, car dealers, developers (including Maui's first condominium) and consumer electronics giant Toshiba, for which he created the slogan they used worldwide for over 25 years: “In touch with tomorrow.”

Rich then moved to Tucson to run the Tucson office of Arizona's first statewide advertising agency, Owens & Associates that eventually became Moret & Associates Advertising.

In the 35 years that Rich has been in advertising in Tucson, he has handled a wide variety of clients — including some firsts, including:

PimaCare: One of the country's first HMO's, and the first to switch from just business to business advertising to consumer advertising using television.

Papago Bingo: One of the country's first Native American casinos and the first casino to “break” the federal statutes against promoting gaming on radio, TV or through the mail.

Canyon Ranch: This being one of the nation's first spas, part of the challenge was to communicate to travel agents what a spa was — and why their wealthy clients needed one.  This was done through the creative use of direct mail — with an invitation to “Send your clients where they'll lose their asses.”

KVOA Eyewitness News: Before local stations had in-house promotion directors, and before they thought of hyping news features, KVOA General Manger Jon Ruby and Rich Moret teamed up to become the first in Tucson to put anchors on billboards, ads in TV Guide and shoot on-location videos promoting provocative news segments.

Wood Bros. Homes: Moret was the first to put a “life-size” reproduction of homes on billboards.  Besides winning numerous awards for this campaign, Moret helped sell many homes.

Other major clients handled over the years include: Estes, Fairfield, Grunewald & Adams, Loews Ventana Canyon, Casino del Sol, Old Tucson, TMC, Biosphere, National Bank of Arizona, MasterCool, Weiser Lock and Jim Click.  In addition, Rich has handled many major political campaigns and prominent local politicians (including the late Mayor Lew Murphy and late Congressman Jim McNulty).  In 1984, a TV spot Rich created for McNulty was chosen by The Today Show as the best political commercial in the country.

Some of the countless boards Rich has served on include those of the United Way, the Advertising Federation, 88-CRIME (former president), Tucson Classics (co-founder of the Michael Landon Celebrity Tennis Classic), The Tucson Boys Chorus, St. Gregory, Amity (former president), Cystic Fibrosis and Pima Community College Foundation.

Besides winning countless creative awards, Rich has been recognized as United Way's “Volunteer of the Year”, the Ad Fed's “Advertising Person of the Year” and, in February 2010, was awarded the highest honor of the American Advertising Federation, its “Silver Medal” lifetime achievement award.