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
Bob’s Work History (Resume)
Bob’s Speaking History
Bob’s Commercial Portfolio
Bob’s Nonprofit Portfolio
Bob’s Interactive Portfolio

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

“Too many folks think “branding” is what airlines do when they repaint the planes every few years, or what banks do when they refresh all the signage in their lobbies and reengineer their logos,” write Bill Schley and Carl Nichols, Jr. (partners at david, inc., an international brand consulting firm), in Chapter Two of “Why Johnny Can’t Brand: Rediscovering the Lost Art of the Big Idea.”

“In the airlines’ case, they spend millions to update the image on the tails of their airplanes,” add Schley and Nichols. “Then they arrive late, stick you in a cramped seat with your knees bumping the food tray, charge you $1,000 more than the guy sitting next to you because you committed the crime of not including a Saturday night stay, and lose your %$##@%!!! luggage! The experience, value impression, and relative position in the passenger’s mind remain exactly the same.”

The authors continue…

Friends, this is not branding in our terms. This is paint on the surface of branding. Branding is about finding a specific IDEA that you stand for, finding a way to own that idea in a credible way, and ultimately building total trust that you will always deliver. It’s about your walk – well before your talk. You make physical, material adjustments to your product, service, and market conduct as necessary to align with that idea. Then you tell the world. And then, if you want to repaint the planes, be out guest.

Even in the world of theater, what actors say is less important than what they do. That’s why any director will tell you, “Action is character.” In our world, action is branding.

They can say that again. All too often during the course of my career I’ve been on the creative end of some mighty powerful branding campaign, only to have the client not live up to its end of the bargain. Like actors – heck, like people in general – ultimately, a client’s actions speak louder than words (and, in this case, pictures, too).

Branding is a shared responsibility between agency and client. All the award-winning copy and design in the world — and, yes, even a fresh coat of paint — can’t save a product or service that fails to meet expectations.

In this new day and age, when advertisers and marketers are being forced to relinquish control to a much savvier consumer, you have to keep it real. You can’t say one thing and do another. You can’t say you’re better at doing this-and-that unless you really are the cat’s meow. If you can’t say what you mean and mean what you say, you’ll do more harm than good in the mind of the marketplace.

To learn more about “Why Johnny Can’t Brand: Rediscovering the Lost Art of the Big Idea” by Bill Schley and Carl Nichols, Jr., and to purchase the book, click here.

Tags: branding direct marketing marketing advertising Why Johnny Can’t Brand ads ad agencies advertising agencies david, inc.

Thank you once again to those of you who sponsored my participation in the Boston Marathon this year. You helped me raise a personal record total of $3,550 – and counting – for Children’s Hospital Boston.

I can’t tell you how grateful I am for your support.

I’m sure I’ll be writing more about this fundraising campaign in the near future, but while the marathon memories are still fresh in my mind, I thought I would at least give you the latest tally now and also let you know how I did as a runner.

Not only did I exceed my previous fundraising high this time around, but I also had a very good day on the course. My finishing time was 3:52:49, my best time in a marathon since 1987. In fact, in the six times I had previously run Boston since 1990, not once had I even broken four hours – until now. Go figure.

I’m giving all the credit to Hailey, my Children’s Hospital Boston patient partner, for inspiring me to run such a fast – for me – time.

Me and Hailey, at a Children’s Hospital Boston celebration last Saturday, just two days before I ran the Boston Marathon this year.

Hailey is a cute, little girl living with osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), a rare genetic disorder – characterized by bones that break easily, often from little or no apparent cause – for which there is not yet a cure.

Imagine, Hailey is only seven, but she’s already suffered more than 50 broken bones and undergone a number of serious surgeries.

If you knew Hailey like I do, you’d understand when I say that she was my inspiration in the Boston Marathon on Monday and the wind beneath my wings.

The Adidas “Reasons to Run” Campaign

Given my excitability in the days leading up to the marathon, I jumped at the chance to participate in the Adidas “Reasons to Run” campaign, which the German sports apparel manufacturer was conducting at the John Hancock Sports & Fitness Expo over the weekend. Talk about appealing to your audience’s emotions. Cleverly creating a win-win situation, Adidas was distributing cards to all the marathon runners at the Expo, on which was inscribed the following message…

WHAT’S YOUR REASON TO RUN?

There are as many reasons to run the granddaddy of all marathons as there are runners. Write down your motivation to run to run on the sticker below then place it on the walls of the adidas Expo booth where you find your bib number. You can also visit the booth and tell our cameras live and in person why you run. View your reason to run on-line beginning April 17th.

In the 20 seconds or so I had to tell the cameras my “reasons to run,” I spoke of Hailey, Children’s Hospital Boston and running the Boston Marathon for charity, reasons that came to me first, before — tellingly — the fact that I enjoy the competition and being part of such a special event, just to name a couple others.

I run because I enjoy it, but it’s a much bigger thrill to run for a greater purpose.

To see for yourself what I had to say (and to see what an engaging, effective campaign this is for Adidas), go to www.reasonstorun.com. Once there, click on the “Launch The Site” button at the bottom of the page, which will open up a new window. After entering my name (Bob Cargill) and bib number (18479) in the search fields there, my recorded testimonial should upload and play.

Tags: fundraising pledge-based fundraising Boston Marathon Bob Cargill Children’s Hospital Boston Miles for Miracles running marathon running for charity

So many advertising, marketing and public relations agencies are dipping their collective toes in the blogosphere lately that unless it’s the likes of Hill Holliday or Edelman we’re talking about, it’s not really big news anymore when any single one of them takes the plunge.

That was certainly not the case as recently as just a few months ago, but blogging has finally eclipsed the tipping point and suddenly everyone and his or her brother wants to get in on the action.

Understandably so.

Given the paradigm shift toward transparency and immediacy that’s now underway in corporate communications, the benefits of business blogging – as long as you do it right – far outweigh the costs.

As I wrote here in this space back in December of 2004, “a blog is tailor-made for storing and managing your intellectual capital. It’s a centralized repository for experience and expertise, an incredibly easy way to disseminate key, timely information to an audience of readers who are already interested in what you have to offer. The cost to set up and maintain a blog is practically nil. And the dividends – for those on either side of the equation – can be priceless.”

Given all the activity of late in the blogosphere, however, even the most noteworthy organizations are managing – whether they like it or not – to blog under the radar screen and, in some cases, wasting gallant efforts.

Sure, if you want to launch a blog softly, this is your opportunity. So many are already out there that the chances are any fledglings won’t attract much attention and you can bide your time on the long tail (if you’re lucky to be on it at all).

On the other hand, if you want the best returns possible on your investment of precious time and top talent, you’re going to have to work hard to attract a meaningful, loyal following. If you don’t post regularly, link liberally and promote the heck out of your new initiative, your blog will make about as much noise as the proverbial tree falling in the woods with no one around to hear it. And in no time at all, you’ll be back to square one.

Tags: blog blogs blogging blogosphere advertising marketing direct marketing public relations Hill Holliday Edelman

I suppose I could change my name to BB CRGL.

And as for my blog, that could be reinvented as NW MKTNG CMNTTR, or some other such cryptic arrangement of letters, sans vowels.

That, at least according to an article I read in the March 19 edition of the Boston Sunday Globe (“Merchants X out A, E, I, O, and U” by Jenn Abelson), would make me hip to what the author characterizes as “a phenomenon that stems from the growing acceptance of shorthand in text-messaging, communication that encourages users to get as much said in as little time and space possible.”

The article begins with the following…

Vwls R so ystrdy.

From Motorola’s SLVR phone to Levi’s DLX jeans, merchants are unveiling new products with compact names that feature as few A, E, I, O, U’s as possible. Vowel free, apparently, connotes cool and modern, and the race to capture that Zeitgeist, marketers say, has spawned Flickrs and Delivrs and even a Broadway show, “Bklyn: The Musical.”

Of course, if you’re an English teacher or a grammarian, I could see where you might look at this new, so-called “phenomenon” as yet another sign that the apocalypse is upon us.

But if you’re a marketer trying to reach young people, I’d look at this as an opportunity to talk to them on their level and wouldn’t hesitate to at least experiment with dropping the vowels in some way, shape or form in one of your campaigns – soonr rathr than latr.

To read “Merchants X out A, E, I, O, and U” by Jenn Abelson (from the March 19 edition of the Boston Sunday Globe) in its entirety, click here.

Tags: marketing direct marketing advertising copywriting branding

If you’ve been reading A New Marketing Commentator over the course of the last few months, you know that in less than five weeks, I’ll be running the Boston Marathon once again for one of the best pediatric hospitals in the country, Children’s Hospital Boston.

This year I have pledged to raise a minimum of $3,500 for Children’s, and I still have a little way to go. So if you would like to contribute to this cause, I certainly would appreciate it. To make a secure, online donation, simply click here or write a check – payable to Children’s Hospital Boston – and return it to my attention at 33 Oakwood Avenue, Sudbury, MA 01776.

To be honest with you, I thought I was conducting a fairly ambitious fundraising campaign until I heard yesterday from another runner – David Paterson, Ph.D (see photo below) – on the Children’s Hospital Miles for Miracles Team Boston, announcing that he was auctioning himself off on eBay in hopes of raising $8,000 for the hospital.

Now that’s what I call going the extra mile.

David Paterson, Ph.D

If you visit his auction page on eBay, the description of the “item” (a dinner date with Dave) up for bid reads, “Dave is 33, single, smart, shy, sensitive, incredibly sexy and Scottish. He grew up in Stirling, the home of Braveheart’s William Wallace and he’s a bit of a Mel Gibson himself. He is an instructor at Harvard with a PHD in Neurology, and works as a medical research scientist in the Dept. of Pathology at Children’s Hospital Boston. He lives in Fenway in Boston now but has lived in Scotland and in Sweden too. He’s a skier as well as a runner and so basically he’s as fit as a butcher’s dog!”

Here’s betting that David will easily reach his fundraising goal, a credit to, well, his brave heart. I haven’t met him yet, but I’ll be looking for him on April 17 at the starting line in Hopkinton to congratulate him on the inventiveness of his campaign.

Boston Marathon Runner David Paterson’s eBay Auction Page for Children’s Hospital Boston

Note from Bob Cargill: To read more about my current fundraising campaign on behalf of Children’s Hospital Boston, click here and here. To read about the other four times I’ve run the Boston Marathon for charity, click here, here, here, here and here.

Tags: fundraising pledge-based fundraising
Boston Marathon eBay Children’s Hospital Boston Miles for Miracles running marathon David Paterson Bob Cargill

In a conversation with Allan Hoffman on Monster, Scott Allen and David Teten, authors of “The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online” (a book I’ve written about before in this space and which my neighbor to the north, Ted Demopoulos, just reviewed on his blog), explain how to use social software – including, of course, blogs – to advance your career…

Monster: Your book views blogs as powerful tools. Should everyone be blogging?

SA: A blog may become as important, if not more important, than your resume. The resume may get you onto the long list, but the blog is definitely a tool to get onto the short list. If you’re trying to position yourself as an expert, then you should be blogging about your topic and building relationships with other people in your industry who are thinking about and talking about the same topic. And when I say you want to position yourself as an expert, I’m not talking about being a professional info-guru. If your business value is centered around your expertise on a particular topic, then you should be writing about it.

Elsewhere in this article, David Teten speaks about what it means to “connect ‘up’ virtually,” saying that “you want to build relationships with people who are a notch above you” and that “blogs are a great way to access people.”

Exactly. Right now my blog is ranked 63,009 out of some 30 million sites being tracked by Technorati, but in December of 2004 an article I posted entitled “Why Advertising, Marketing and PR Pros Should Blog (Parts One, Two and Three)” was cited by one of the most influential bloggers in the world, Steve Rubel, on his blog, Micro Persuasion, which is currently ranked 71.

Now that’s a good example of connecting up, if ever there was one, no?

To read the article, Social Software and Your Career: A Conversation with the Authors of The Virtual Handshake by Allan Hoffman, Monster Tech Jobs Expert, click here.

Tags: blogs blogging The Virtual Handshake blog social software careers Monster jobs employment

If you’ve ever been between jobs, you know how much of a challenge it is to stand out in a crowd of those who are ambitiously jockeying for the same gig.

After all, chances are you’re just one of dozens, if not hundreds, with relatively similar credentials in line for that one plum position.

And unless you know someone in a corner office who can grant you the inside track, the odds of your resume getting past the gatekeepers and in the hands of the top dog are slim to none, never mind getting your foot in the door for an interview.

With that said, in addition to going about my new job search in all the usual ways – posting my resume on online job boards such as Monster and Talent Zoo, mining Craigslist for that rare golden opportunity, speaking to a slew of professional recruiters and touching base with practically everyone I know in the business – I thought I would do for myself what I’ve been doing for clients for so long and put together my own little direct mail campaign, asking for a meeting with those whom I would like to work for in the worst way.

Of course, a simple letter alone just wasn’t going to cut it. A prospective employer wouldn’t stand for anything less than a solicitation out of the ordinary from a creative guy like me. Not only did I need to come up with a compelling offer, but I also needed to present it in a refreshingly different way.

A Cup of Coffee to Wake up My Audience

Given my desire to have a face-to-face meeting with each of my prospects, I settled on a Starbucks Card as a means of coaxing them into sitting down for a cup of coffee with me.

But the strategy for commanding my audience’s attention didn’t stop there. I wanted to speak to those on the receiving end of this unique, self-promotional campaign at a level they would appreciate — not just as some guy looking for a job, but as a knowledgeable industry peer. My appeal needed to be relevant to the reader, not simply self-serving. The last thing I wanted was for the Starbucks Card to be perceived as just another gratuitous come-on from an overzealous stranger.

Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink”

Well, coincidentally I recently finished reading “Blink” (the latest book by Malcolm Gladwell, author of the landmark bestseller, “The Tipping Point”), which is all about making choices based on instinct, “in the blink of an eye.” At some point in the book, Gladwell even goes so far as to suggest that job interviews would be conducted differently if people were to rely more on their gut feelings.

Writing to my audience about “Blink” would be as much of interest to them as helpful to me in getting my message across.

Now all I had to worry about was the execution. As much fun as I wanted to have with this campaign, I still wanted to keep it simple, and printing the following message on a Starbucks napkin (as though I had written it — impromptu — over a cup of coffee) helped me achieve both of these objectives…

If you’ve read Blink, the latest book by Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point), you know that some of the best decisions are made in an instant – in the blink of an eye. I hope this is one of them. I hope you decide – without hesitation – to sit down with me for a cup of coffee. I would like to show you my portfolio and talk about how I might be able to contribute to the success of Company Name as a creative director, copywriter, blogger and strategic marketing consultant. Please – take your instincts seriously and let’s get together soon. Thanks.

Tucked inside the napkin were both the Starbucks Card and a small piece of card stock featuring this short excerpt from “Blink”…

“There are lots of books that tackle broad themes, that analyze the world from great remove. This is not one of them. Blink is concerned with the very smallest components of our everyday lives – the content and origin of those instantaneous impressions and conclusions that spontaneously arise whenever we meet a new person or confront a complex situation or have to make a decision under conditions of stress. When it comes to the task of understanding ourselves and our world, I think we pay too much attention to those grand themes and too little to the particulars of those fleeting moments. But what would happen if we took our instincts seriously? What if we stopped scanning the horizon with our binoculars and began instead examining our own decision making and behavior through the most powerful of microscopes? I think that would change the way wars are fought, the kinds of products we see on our shelves, the kinds of movies that get made, the way police officers are trained, the way couples are counseled, the way job interviews are conducted, and on and on. And if we were to combine all those little changes, we would end up with a different and better world. I believe – and I hope that by the end of this book you will believe it as well – that the task of making sense of ourselves and our behavior requires that we acknowledge there can be as much value in the blink of an eye as in months of rational analysis.”*

*Excerpted from “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking” (pp. 16-17), by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown and Company)

Needless to say, I couldn’t help but highlight in yellow the line about job interviews – this was no time for subtlety.

All of the above – the paper napkin, the Starbucks Card and the book excerpt – were mailed in a handsome, cream white A-7 (7” X 5-1/4”) envelope that I bought over the counter at The Paper Store. And on the envelope itself, not only did I print the word B-L-I-N-K in big, block letters, but I also added a ring-like, dried coffee stain, introducing the two creative concepts that were the foundation of a campaign that will hopefully land me a new job as a creative director, copywriter, blogger and strategic marketing consultant.

Time will tell how well this campaign will fare. I mailed the first round of letters just a few days ago. But whether or not anyone responds affirmatively to my request for an interview, I’ll at least be able to rest assured knowing I’ve shown those who are calling the shots not only how much I care about my work, but also how strongly I feel about working for them.

Bob’s Work History

Bob’s Public Speaking History

Tags: direct mail direct marketing copywriter Bob Cargill marketing Malcolm Gladwell Blink Starbucks creative director careers jobs employment