James Notarnicola is a member of Brock Capital Group LLC. He also provides marketing and strategy advice to retail companies and is an associate consultant to Experience Engineering of Minneapolis, the leading consultancy in customer experience management. Mr. Notarnicola is a partner in J&B Restaurants, Inc. the owner and operator of Friendly’s and Taco Bell franchises in Long Island, N.Y. He is also President of Nicely Bros. Ice Cream Distribution of Richmond, Virginia, an authorized distributor for Unilever brands including Ben & Jerry’s, Breyer’s, Good Humor, Popsicle, Klondike, and other ice cream. He is on the advisory board of Aveus, a Minneapolis strategy and marketing consulting firm.
From 1997 until 2003, Mr. Notarnicola was Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Blockbuster Video the world’s largest video retailer and a division of Viacom until 2001 and then a free standing publicly traded company. In that capacity Mr. Notarnicola was responsible for a number of award winning advertising campaigns, directed the development and implementation of Blockbuster Rewards, at the time the largest paid loyalty program in the U.S., directed strategy and creative efforts in over 28 countries with a marketing budget in excess of $300M. Mr. Notarnicola also was responsible for Corporate Communications, was a member of the Viacom Marketing Council, and was named one of Advertising Age’s Top 100 marketers in 1999.
Prior to Blockbuster Mr. Notarnicola was Vice President of Marketing and Communications of 7-Eleven Food Stores, Inc. from 1993 until 1997 responsible for all marketing strategy and creative efforts for 7-Eleven in the U.S. 7-Eleven is publicly traded but majority owned by Ito Yokado of Tokyo, Japan and franchises or operates over 20,000 stores worldwide. During his time at 7-Eleven, Mr. Notarnicola was involved in numerous award winning campaigns, and directed the development of the now famous “Brainfreeze” ads for Slurpee. From 1978 until 1993 Mr. Notarnicola held progressive operating and marketing positions from store manager to vice president of marketing.
Mr. Notarnicola is Vice President of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. He is a past Trustee of the NAACP, the Mexican American Opportunity Foundation, and the University of Texas Pan Am.
James Notarnicola received his B.S. from the University of Maryland and an Advanced Marketing Certificate from the University of Texas.