After more than 26 months and 62,000 words, I’ve decided to give this blog a rest.

It may not be the end for A New Marketing Commentator, but it will be at least a short hiatus.

Thank you so much for your support, love and friendship. As much as you’ve given me, I hope I’ve given you even more in return.

Bob Cargill
Copywriter and Creative Director
May 10, 2006

Bob’s Bio and Contact Information
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Tags: Bob Cargill copywriter creative director copywriting creative direction blogger direct marketing advertising marketing A New Marketing Commentator

Two days ago, I wrote here in this space about word of mouth marketing, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and BzzAgent. Today’s post is a continuation of that same article, in which I write about my own personal use of word of mouth marketing on behalf of BzzAgent and its client, Atkins Advantage Bars…

On more than several occasions, I chose to Bzz on behalf of Atkins Advantage Bars by sharing the product with others.

I gave a bar to the computer technician who was kind enough to make a house call when my laptop almost crashed.

I shared two – the Caramel Fudge Brownie and Chocolate Chip Granola bars – with my 17-year-old step-daughter, Sophie (who liked the latter flavor better).

I gave bars to a couple of my running buddies from the Greater Framingham Running Club (just prior to the start of our longest training run of the year, a 21-mile sojourn from the Hopkinton Common to the top of Heartbreak Hill in Newton).

And I brought a few bars to a conference planning committee meeting I had with two of my friends from NEDMA, an activity that I documented and submitted to BzzAgent in the form of the following BzzReport…

My BzzReport on Atkins Advantage Bars

I had an informal business meeting at the restaurant, T.G.I. Friday’s, and I thought this would be a great opportunity to share my Atkins Advantage Bars with others. The setting was right, a place where food and drinks were being served amidst a relaxing, enjoyable atmosphere. And given that my dinner companions were two fellow marketing professionals, I had a hunch that my Bzz would go over well. And indeed it did, as my colleagues, Ben and Craig, were as much excited about the concept of word-of-mouth marketing as the free samples I was about to distribute. I gave each of them a bar to take home with them that evening (and the next day I sent them a brochure explaining the nutritional advantages of Atkins Advantage Bars and a coupon worth a dollar off any two Advantage bars). I also offered one of my bars to our waitress, who scoffed it down in the kitchen and came back to our table with a rave review. I couldn’t help but find it more than a little ironic that I had my entire table talking about such healthy, nutritious snacks as the Atkins Chocolate Chip Granola Bar, Chocolate Peanut Butter Bar and Caramel Fudge Brownie Bar when all around us people were being served plates piled ridiculously high with French fries, onion rings, potato skins, cheeseburgers, chicken wings and spare ribs. Nothing against the restaurant (because I really do like the food there), but maybe T.G.I. Friday’s should consider adding Atkins Advantage Bars to its menu.

The Future of WOMM

Clearly, I’m bullish on the prospects of word of mouth marketing. And given the fact that I’m such a dyed-in-the-wool direct marketer, beholden to measurable response rates from day one of my career, I suppose that may surprise some people. After all, the benefits of WOMM are not necessarily easy to quantify.

But my partiality is due in large part to the fact that word of mouth marketing is not that far removed from what I’ve been doing so frequently over the course of the last couple of years in the blogosphere. Every time I write and publish a post, I’m hoping to build at least some degree of buzz on behalf of a particular point of view, if not a product or service. Such activity – word of mouth anything – comes naturally to me. And I’ve enjoyed some of the rewards.

The bottom line is that word of mouth marketing seems to lend itself well to today’s new marketing landscape, which has businesses and organizations placing greater stock in consumer opinion and actually involving them in the sales, marketing and public relations process. As just one tool of our trade (among many), WOMM certainly has my endorsement. However, time will tell just how many others in my field pay it anything more than lip service.

Note: This is part two of a two-part article on the author’s experience with word of mouth marketing and the company, BzzAgent. Part one was posted here on A New Marketing Commentator on May 3, 2006.

To learn more about BzzAgent (which even has a free program for qualified nonprofit organizations), click here.

Tags: word of mouth marketing Word of Mouth Marketing Association BzzAgent Bob Cargill Atkins Advantage Bars word of mouth direct marketing marketing advertising public relations

Unofficially, word of mouth marketing has been around for a long time, but only in the last few years has it been so formally recognized and widely embraced as a bona fide discipline and tool of our trade.

Given such sudden appeal, it’s understandable that a relatively new association of the same name is experiencing a similar degree of popularity.

Founded in late 2004, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) is the official trade association for the word of mouth marketing industry.

WOMMA’s mission is to promote and improve word of mouth marketing by:

· Protecting consumers and the industry with strong ethical guidelines
· Promoting WOM as an effective marketing tool
· Setting standards to encourage its use

What is Word of Mouth Marketing?

Word of mouth is “a pre-existing phenomenon that marketers are only now learning how to harness, amplify, and improve. Word of mouth marketing isn’t about creating word of mouth — it’s learning how to make it work within a marketing objective,” says WOMMA on its Web site, adding…

That said, word of mouth can be encouraged and facilitated. Companies can work hard to make people happier, they can listen to consumers, they can make it easier for them to tell their friends, and they can make certain that influential individuals know about the good qualities of a product or service.

Word of mouth marketing empowers people to share their experiences. It’s harnessing the voice of the customer for the good of the brand. And it’s acknowledging that the unsatisfied customer is equally powerful.

BzzAgent

Word of mouth marketing is, in fact, what BzzAgent, a company I’ve become more than a little familiar with lately, has to offer its clients. In a nutshell, what BzzAgent does is conduct word of mouth marketing campaigns on behalf of its clients by recruiting an army of – you guessed it – BzzAgents, everyday people like you and me who are willing to voluntarily spread word of mouth (Bzz) in exchange for free product samples.

Yes, I’m here to tell you that I’m a BzzAgent.

Which, in fact, is the very first rule in The BzzAgent Code of Conduct: Be open.

BzzAgent’s Welcome Kit says a BzzAgent “is free to talk about BzzAgent….”

Be proud to be a BzzAgent. When Bzzing others, you must first let them know that you’re involved with BzzAgent, and that you’ve chosen to volunteer your time to share your opinion. If you like a product or service, it doesn’t matter where you found out about it, so don’t feel as though you need to be anonymous or stealthy. Just be open, honest and let your opinion count.

It’s easy to become a BzzAgent. You register online, sharing some of your likes and dislikes with the so-called Central Hive. The more you divulge about yourself, the easier it is for the company to determine your interest level and compatibility with upcoming campaigns. After I signed up a couple months ago and participated in about a half-dozen polls and surveys (each one took only about a minute or so to complete), BzzAgent had me figured out well enough to deem me eligible for The Atkins Advantage Bars BzzCampaign.

My First BzzCampaign

Perfect. Given that I had been training to run the Boston Marathon, the timing couldn’t have been better. (And because I’ve always relied on PowerBar, Atkins’ competition, for my quick hunger and energy fix, they really couldn’t have had a more qualified taste-tester.)

A few days after joining the campaign, I received my BzzKit, a big, brown box containing all kinds of literature about both BzzAgent and, of course, Atkins Advantage Bars, not to mention a box of the bars themselves in a variety of flavors — Peanut Butter Granola, Chocolate Chip Granola and Carmel Fudge Brownie.

After getting to know the product, my mission (which I had already accepted), was to perform what BzzAgent calls BzzActivity and report back on such Bzz by filing a short BzzReport. BzzAgent even went so far as to suggest a number of different ways I could spread the good word, such as sharing my bars and coupons with others, asking for the Atkins Advantage Bars at the store, leaving them around in places where people congregate (talk about a random act of kindness!) and even creating my own unique Bzz, which you could say I’m doing right here and now on A New Marketing Commentator.

What’s more, for each instance of BzzActivity I reported, I would earn a number of points which could be redeemed for BzzRewards, such as a travel mug, tote bag or shower radio — pretty cool tchotchkes, if you ask me.

Note: This is part one of a two-part article on the author’s experience with word of mouth marketing and the company, BzzAgent. Later on this week, part two will be posted here on A New Marketing Commentator.

To learn more about BzzAgent (which even has a free program for qualified nonprofit organizations), click here.

Tags: word of mouth marketing Word of Mouth Marketing Association BzzAgent Bob Cargill Atkins Advantage Bars word of mouth direct marketing marketing advertising public relations

After more than 26 months and 62,000 words, I’ve decided to give this blog a rest.

It may not be the end for A New Marketing Commentator, but it will be at least a short hiatus.

I’ve spent between five and ten hours a week since February of 2004 in the blogosphere, most of those hours researching and writing original posts, and my gut tells me it’s time to pause and refresh.

I want to concentrate fully on my search for new work and free up more time to spend with my family and friends.

I also need to measure the benefits of independent blogging for me at this point in my career and give careful consideration to expending such creative energy – sigh – in other areas instead.

Please stay tuned for at least two more new posts this week. My plans are to then sign off – perhaps just temporarily – until I can be absolutely clear and conclusive about the future of A New Marketing Commentator.

Wherever I land, whatever I do, I’ll at least keep this blog up as is — as my own personal archive and as a resource to others — for the foreseeable future.

Thank you so much for your support, love and friendship.