The Boston Globe - 05.08.2019

Business

THEBOSTONGLOBEMONDAY, AUGUST5, 2019 | BOSTONGLOBE.COM/BUSINESS

D

ByMeghanaKeshavan
STAT
LOS ANGELES — At this year’s largest confer-
ence on Alzheimer’s disease recently, there was no
big reveal. There wereno majorcompaniespresent-
ing late-stage data on promising therapies. There was
little in the way of groundbreaking research.
Instead, therewas a sensethat, after a
string of high-profileclinical trial failures,
thereis nowhere to go but back to the drawing board.
“The fieldis confused,disoriented, and completely
devastated. We don’t have a lot of positive news these
days,” said Martin Tolar, the CEO of Framingham,
Mass.-basedAlzheon,one of the few companiesleft
standingin the Alzheimer’s space.“ButI do believe
there’s a lot of incredible science builtover the past 20
years.”
Indeed, to spend several days at the Alzheimer’s Asso-
ciation International Conference was to witness a field in
recovery. But it was also to see reasonsfor hope.
Researchershave access to five times the capitalthey
did a few years back; federal funding for dementia has
increased from $425million in 2012to $2.4 billion in
2019. Many major pharmaceutical companies have
backed out of the space, having lost billions of dollars—
but there’s a bipartisan commitment to keep Alzheimer’s
funding from the National Institutes of Health strong.

Scientists are seekingfreshapproaches to a disease

that ravages the brains of some 44 million people around

the world.This includesmakingsenseof the repeated

clinicalfailures, as well as exploring avenues of research

that were previously cast aside.

“We’ve broughttogether pharma, biotech, philan-

thropies,and multipleacademicdepartments to work

together to identify new targets for intervention,” said

Dr. Richard Hodes, director of the NIH’s National Insti-

tute on Aging. “We’ve learned fromthe unfortunate fail-

ures... the culture shift is really remarkable.”

Rather than developingnew drugs, many researchers

are focusednow on delving deeper into the root causes

of dementia — the genes involved, the molecular path-

ALZHEIMER'S,PageD2

For Alzheimer’s

researchers, it may

be back to the

drawing board

STAT

ADOBE STOCK

ByJon Chesto

GLOBESTAFF

L

ike other chief marketing

officersin the Boston area,

Don Lane faces an impor-

tant question:whether to

buy local.

Advertising, that is.

As the new chief market-

ing officer at the Saucony shoe compa-

ny in Waltham,Lane may be looking

for a new ad agency later this year. If

that happens, he would prefer not to

have to look too far.

“An agency in our backyard would

be preferred,” said Lane, who spent

muchof his career at the Boston adver-

tisinggiantArnold. “I’m a big fan of

the Boston ad community. There’s a

ton of talenthere.[But] the Boston ad

community needs to do a better job

capturing and sellingwhat makes the

city a hotbed of creativity.”

Timewas, Boston companies usual-

ly hiredBoston advertising agencies.

But now, if Lane stays in his backyard,

he’d be bucking an industry trend.Be-

ing localis no longer an advantage for

an ad agency; proximity and geogra-

phy barelyseemto matter anymore.

There are no hard numbers or clear

statistics, but ad executivessaid the

shift has beenplain to see in recent

years. “There isn’t that geographicloy-

alty anymore,” said Rick McKenna,

who runs a local brand consultancy,

Altantic Strategies.

“Social mediaand the Internet has

totally changed the perspective.... If

somebodyis cheaperelsewhere,[cli-

ents]are going to go for it.”

The ad industry is dealingwith

major nationwideshifts: frequent

turnover among the chief marketing

officerswho set the advertisingagen-

das for corporate buyers; the rise of the

“in-house agency,” an internalsquad

that does moreadvertisingproduc-

tion;a moveaway from the “agency of

record” model, with one firm handling

all the disparate marketing needsfor a

company; and an emphasis on target-

ed marketing on digital platforms,

rather than big TV spends.

Several of Boston’s big agencies

have continued to growtheirstaffs,

regardless, in part by winning more

business from out-of-state clients.But

nearly every Boston agency of signifi-

cant size has beenaffected by the trend

away from local preference.

Hill Holliday came up with “Re-

sponsibility. What’s your policy?” for

Liberty Mutual’s consumerbusiness.

Arnold told stories “Straightfrom the

ADAGENCIES,PageD3

Hill Holliday cameupwitha campaignforLiberty Mutual,Arnold

toldstories“straightfromthebog” forOceanSpray, andFull

Contact recruitedtheactorDavidHasselhoff to promote

CumberlandFarmscoffee.Butallof thosecorporate accountshave

sincebeenmovedto out-of-townadvertisingagencies.

Hometown advantage?

Not for local ad agencies

In the era of the Internet and social media, proximity

and geography barelyseemto matter anymore

Buckingthetrend,thenew ownersof thePapaGino’s and

D’Angelochainshave decidedto useFull Contact, of Boston,

whichhaddoneadcampaignsforthetwo chainsin thepast.

ByJim Tankersley

andBen Casselman

NEWYORKTIMES

PLAINFIELD, Ill. — The mortgage-

interest deduction, a belovedtax

breakboundtightly to the American

dreamof homeownership,once

seemedpoliticallyinvincible.Then it

nearlyvanishedin middle-class neigh-

borhoodsacrossthe country, and it

appearsthat hardly anyonenoticed.

In places like Plainfield, a south-

western outpost in the area known lo-

cally as Chicagoland,the housingmar-

ket is humming. The people selling

and buying homesdo not seemto care

much that PresidentTrump’s signa-

ture tax overhaul effectively, although

indirectly, vaporized a longtime

source of governmentsupport for ho-

meownersand housingprices.

The 2017law nearly doubled the

standard deduction — to $24,000 for a

couple filing jointly — on federal in-

come taxes, giving millions of house-

holds an incentive to stop claiming

itemizeddeductions.

As a result, far fewer families —

and,in particular, far fewer middle-

classfamilies — are claimingthe item-

ized deduction for mortgage interest.

In 2018, about 1 in 5 taxpayers

claimed the deduction, Internal Reve-

nue Service statistics show. This year,

that numberfell to fewer than 1 in 10.

For families earning less than

$100,000, the declinewas even more

stark.

The benefit, as it remains,is largely

for high earners, and more limited

than it once was: The 2017law capped

the maximumvalue of new mortgage

debteligible for the deductionat

$750,000,downfrom $1 million.

There has been no audible public out-

cry, prompting somepeople in Wash-

ington to propose scrapping the tax

breakentirely.

If the deduction’s decline shouldbe

causing a stir anywhere,it is in towns

like Plainfield, where the typical fami-

ly earnsabout$100,000a year and the

typical home sells for $300,000. But

MORTGAGES,PageD3

Demiseof mortgage-interest

deductionis met with a shrug

Buyers and sellers do

not seem to care that the

tax rewrite indirectly

vaporized a source of

government support for

homeowners.