Richard Edmund LaMotta (May 20, 1942 – May 11, 2010) was an American attorney and entrepreneur, the creator and principal promoter of the Chipwich

ice cream sandwich An ice cream sandwich is a frozen dessert consisting of ice cream between two biscuits, wafers, soft cookies, or other baked goods. The ingredients are different around the world, with Ireland using wafers and the United States commonly using c ...

, which he introduced to New York City in 1982 with a

guerrilla Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military, such as rebels, Partisan (military), partisans, paramilitary personnel or armed civilians, which may include Children in the military, recruite ...

marketing campaign.

Early life and education

Richard Edmund LaMotta was born on May 20, 1942, in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, one of two children of Joseph and Mary (Gibbons) LaMotta. An Italian Catholic immigrant from

Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...

, his father worked as a drummer and diaper salesman. One of Richard's much older cousins on his father's side was Jake LaMotta (b. 1922), who became the middleweight boxing champion. LaMotta graduated from

Brooklyn Technical High School Brooklyn Technical High School, commonly called Brooklyn Tech and administratively designated High School 430, is a public specialized high school in New York City that specializes in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. It is on ...

. He went on to earn a B.S. in Economics from

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn in New York City, United States. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls nearly 14,000 students on a campus in the Midwood and Flatbush sections of Brooklyn as of fall ...

and then a J.D. from

New York Law School New York Law School (NYLS) is a private, American law school in the Tribeca neighborhood in Manhattan, New York City. The third oldest law school in New York City, its history predates its official founding in 1891 by Theodore William Dwight, T ...

in June 1975. He earned both degrees while taking classes at night and working at various jobs during the day, including a job for several years as an audio engineer at CBS for The Ed Sullivan Show. As a college freshman, LaMotta developed his own record label. After negotiating with the college business office, music professors, and executives at

RCA RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded in 1919 as the Radio Corporation of America. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westinghou ...

BMG Music Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) was a division of a German media company Bertelsmann before its completion of sale of the majority of its assets to Sony Corporation of America on 1 October 2008. Although it was established in 1987, the music co ...

Deutsche Grammophon Deutsche Grammophon (; DGG) is a German classical music record label that was the precursor of the corporation PolyGram. Headquartered in Berlin Friedrichshain, it is now part of Universal Music Group (UMG) since its merger with the UMG family of ...

, etc., he created a two-record album featuring recordings for the Music 101 class, which was required of all

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a Public university, public research university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York ...

students. He sold more than fifty thousand albums.

Chipwich

In 1981, LaMotta developed the Chipwich. On May 1, 1982, he began a

guerrilla marketing Guerrilla marketing is an Advertising, advertisement strategy in which a company uses surprise and/or unconventional interactions in order to promote a Product (business), product or Service (business), service. It is a type of publicity. The ...

campaign, in which he trained and enlisted sixty students as street cart vendors to sell the Chipwich on the streets in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. A few hours later, all twenty-five thousand Chipwich sandwiches had been sold. After two weeks, forty thousand Chipwiches were being sold each day. The campaign established Chipwich as a successful brand. CoolBrands International, once the second-largest ice cream distributor in the United States, bought the Chipwich brand in 2002. After encountering financial difficulties in 2004, CoolBrands sold Eskimo Pie and Chipwich to

Dreyer's Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, Inc. (or simply Dreyer's) is an American ice cream company, founded in 1928 in Oakland, California. The company's two signature brands, ''Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream'' and ''Edy's Grand Ice Cream'', are named after its foun ...

(a division of

Nestlé Nestlé S.A. ( ) is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland. It has been the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, since 20 ...

) in 2007, and divested most of its other core businesses. Nestlé ultimately discontinued the Chipwich brand. However, current owners Crave Better Foods LLC relaunched the Chipwich in 2018. LaMotta was featured in more than 8,000 stories in newspapers, magazines and other media covering the past 25 years. He received the ''Ad Age'' Executive Marketing Award, '' Adweek'' magazine's Hottest Product of the Year Award, and ''Sales and Marketing'' magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

References

External links

Richard LaMotta's description of the founding of Chipwich Inc. (Chipwich official site)Notable Alumni Profile: Richard LaMotta
New York Law School {{DEFAULTSORT:Lamotta, Richard 1942 births 2010 deaths American inventors New York Law School alumni Lawyers from Brooklyn Businesspeople from Brooklyn American people of Italian descent Brooklyn Technical High School alumni Brooklyn College alumni 20th-century American lawyers

Early life and education

Chipwich

References

Further reading

External links