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

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.

Last Friday, I was invited by my friend, Leslie Dangel, to deliver a guest lecture to a class of marketing students she teaches at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts. She’s asked me on a number of occasions in the past, and I always enjoy the experience.

This time around was no different.

I first spoke about running the Boston Marathon for charity and the five different fundraising campaigns I’ve conducted – on behalf of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (’96), The Home for Little Wanderers (‘02 and ’03) and Children’s Hospital Boston (’05 and ’06) – as part of the Boston Athletic Association’s Charity Program.

I then showed the class a wall calendar we used as a self-promotional, lead-generation piece when I worked as a creative director at Boston’s Yellowfin Direct Marketing. It was a great example of using both creativity (each month included a tip on how to “take your organization’s direct marketing initiatives to the next highest level”) and printing technology (each individual calendar was highly personalized, featuring the recipient’s name in big, bold letters) to capture your audience’s attention.

But what seemed to interest the students most was when I talked about blogs and suggested that blogging is a skill that just may help them land that first job out of college. In fact, one student, Daniel P. Viens, seemed especially enamored with the topic. So much so, apparently, that he launched his own blog just two days later, in which he wrote…

I recently had a speaker in a marketing course I am taking who spent a portion of his time discussing the value of blogging in business and the growing importance of blogs in the professional community. Mr. Bob Cargill’s enthusiasm about this form of online expression was exiting and definitely the catalyst that finally led me to take on the endeavor of creating/maintaining my own website/blog.

The fact that my remarks resonated so much with Daniel is why I’ve never hesitated to say yes when asked to speak before a group of students. It’s not everyday you get to have such influence over the next generation.

Of course, the fact that blogging is so appealing to Daniel and so many other young people is another takeway from this story altogether. If you’re still not taking blogs – and other new media – seriously, take a look at how college students are using technology to communicate today. Then ask yourself how fast things are going to change in just a few years once they’ve fully matriculated into the workforce — and society at large — and the communications habits, preferences and skills they’ve brought with them have reached critical mass.

Now would be a good time for us to prepare.

Note: The author of A New Marketing Commentator, Bob Cargill, is an award-winning creative director, copywriter and blogger who is currently available for hire as a freelancer, consultant, contractor or employee. In fact, Bob’s services – satisfaction guaranteed – have recently been put up for bid on eBay. You can contact Bob – anytime – at Email Bob Cargill.

Bob’s eBay Ad

Bob’s Work History (Resume)

Bob’s Speaking History

Bob’s Commercial Portfolio
Bob’s Nonprofit Portfolio
Bob’s Interactive Portfolio

Tags: Bob Cargill blog blogs blogosphere blogging student blogs advertising marketing direct marketing

“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.

I’ve been blogging for more than two years now, and I can’t say there haven’t been days when I’ve wondered if all the time and energy I put into A New Marketing Commentator is worth it.

But last Thursday wasn’t one of them.

That was when the 25th Annual New England Direct Marketing Association’s Awards for Creative Excellence were handed out, and this blog was honored with gold.

Yes, this labor of love of mine was the first blog ever to win a NEDMA award, and that award just happened to be first place in one of the Interactive categories (Other Interactive, B-to-B: CD-ROMs, Videos, Interactive Kiosks, Blogs).

How cool is that?

Not to toot my own horn, but I was also fortunate to receive three awards for the direct mail campaign I conducted last year when I ran the Boston Marathon for Children’s Hospital Boston. For that initiative, I took home a silver award in the Best Copywriting category, a gold in one DM on a Shoestring category (Budget under $2,500, Consumer or B-to-B) and a bronze in another (Cheap for a Good Cause, Non-Profit).

Of course, it felt great to be on the receiving end of such flattering accolades. I can only hope to find myself in the same beautiful place next year — but not simply as a sole practitioner, as just one member of a whole new team.

Bob’s Work History (Resume)

Bob’s Public Speaking History

Bob’s Bio

Tags: blog blogs blogging Bob Cargill NEDMA New England Direct Marketing Association direct marketing copywriting Children’s Hospital Boston

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

In case you missed it, the Web Marketing Association (WMA) recently released its Internet Standards Assessment Report (ISAR), which “provides industry benchmarks for Web site development and is based on data collected from 9,748 Web site evaluations since 1997.”

You can sign up to get your own free copy of this report here.

In his summary of the report, Adrants’ Steve Hall said “public relations sites ranked low across all categories,” a finding that prompted the following comment from another Steve in my blogroll, Micro Persuasion’s Steve Rubel…

When I read this my gut says that the adoption of blogging and other social media technologies on agency sites will separate the men from the boys, the ladies from the girls. As agencies begin to blog (or not), their writing skills will become more transparent, warts and all. Writing skills are not becoming less important. In fact, they’re more relevant than ever in this conversational world. We need to be able to communicate ideas informally in a human voice. Start practicing now before it’s too late. Get blogging.

You can say that again, Steve. I agree with you wholeheartedly.

As a copywriter who — like a broken record — has been talking up the benefits of blogging for the last two years to anyone who will listen, I couldn’t feel more strongly that the time for agencies to enter the blogosphere — if they haven’t already — is long overdue.

Tags: blog blogs blogging PR social software public relations advertising direct marketing marketing

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

If you know of an organization that’s looking for an experienced direct marketer and enthusiastic, entrepreneurial creative director, copywriter, blogger and public speaker, I know of someone who fits the bill.

Moi.

Yes, I’m here to tell you that even though my employment with one company has just recently come to an end, I have no intention whatsoever of letting even a few blades of grass grow like a contagion under my feet.

Given such urgency and resolve, I have already touched base with my network of friends and colleagues in the terrestrial world, letting them know of my availability and desire to land a new full-time job – or contract assignment – as soon as possible.

And, of course, I’ve been wading my way through Monster, Talent Zoo and Craigslist on a regular basis.

So now it’s time for me to put the word out in the blogosphere.

I’ve been blessed to have worked with some great people at some stellar organizations in the past, but I’m hopeful that the next step in my career will be to an even higher rung on the proverbial corporate ladder.

Wherever I land, I hope it’s a place that recognizes the need to leverage the effectiveness of traditional, time-tested marketing principles with the power of the latest new conversational media tools, consequently embracing a sense of both immediacy and transparency, two of the most important hallmarks of successful brand communications campaigns today.

Wherever I land, I hope it’s a place teeming with brilliant creative minds and bold, farsighted agents of change who can at least relate to such groundbreaking business tomes as “The Cluetrain Manifesto,” “The Tipping Point,” “The Virtual Handshake” and “Life After the 30-Second Spot,” not to mention the thought leadership of luminaries the likes of Seth Godin, Tom Peters, Steve Rubel and Amy Gahran.

In exchange for such synergy and simpatico, I vow to give my next employer every last ounce of my whole professional being.

I vow to wield my skills in the areas of creative direction, communications and strategic consulting to help lead this organization through the minefields of change and into the promised land of new marketing nirvana, where it can be gleefully at one with its employees, partners and constituents alike.

This, as I stand at the crossroads of change in an industry that has been surprisingly slow to adapt and adopt, is my career imperative, my own personal brand mantra, my clarion call to any potential employer who will listen and accede to my dream of a new and even better way of doing my work.

Bob’s Work History

Bob’s Public Speaking History

If you were a neighbor of mine, you’d know what I mean when I say my lawn isn’t going to win any beauty contests. It’s so thin, brown and malnourished, it’s embarrassing – especially during the dog days of summer.

So when The Scotts Company wrote to me recently about growing a thicker, greener lawn, its timing – and targeting of me as a potential customer – couldn’t have been better.

After all, like any other proud homeowner in this day and age, I need to be doing everything I can to keep up with the Joneses, no?

Which reminds me of a direct mail package Scotts sent out a few years ago, bearing the words, “Now the grass can be greener on your side.” While these folks didn’t earn my business at the time, they did earn my respect, as the marketer in me was more than a little impressed with their use of a cliché as a headline.

Sure, a cliché (typically defined as a predictable, trite or overused expression) might not show much inventiveness and originality on the part of the copywriter, but it can go a long way towards capturing the attention of prospects.

A cliché is an expression to which almost everyone can relate. It speaks to something with which most people are familiar. Used in an unusual manner, or paraphrased, it can help you establish immediate rapport.

For instance, the Boston Sunday Globe once coined the headline, “Sunday Best,” to promote home delivery of the newspaper.

Then there’s Hoverspeed, a UK-based operator of high-speed catamarans, which issued a press release entitled, “Don’t Miss the Boat.”

Of course, Midas, the famous auto repair outlet, backs up its services with the tagline, “Trust the Midas Touch.”

And in the aftermath of September 11, New York City launched its “Paint the Town Red, White & Blue” campaign, as a way of stimulating more tourism and new business activity.

But I haven’t seen any other cliché worked over more often – albeit cleverly – in advertising than “The Cure for the Common Cold.”

Just this summer, in the June 30-July 14 issue of Rolling Stone magazine, Triumph Motorcyles proclaimed its Rocket III, “The Cure for the Common Cruiser.”

I’m sure Triumph wasn’t aware that Nissan drew on an almost identical expression to help sell four wheels instead of two, heralding the 2002 Nissan Altima as “The Cure for the Common Car.”

That would be a bitter pill to swallow, otherwise.

Usage of this prescription-related metaphor doesn’t stop there, though.

Trade Secret, a chain of full-service salons, once promoted one of its products with the headline, “The Cure for the Common Curl.”

Boston’s Yale Electric Sales has advertised Casablanca, billed as the “World’s Finest Ceiling Fan,” as “The Cure for the Common Fan.”

And in an attempt to distinguish itself from the competition, The Samuel Adams Brewhouse (also in Boston) has taken the same expression one step further, claiming it serves up “The Cure for the Common Cold One,” adding, “We dispense six distinctive styles of freshly tapped Samuel Adams. For what ales you.”

I think I’m coming down with a fever.

Finally, The Scotts Company isn’t the only lawn care company to adopt a cliché and manipulate it to its advantage. While conducting research for this story, I found a cute, little classified ad for the Lawn Doctor, a company that really takes its name literally, claiming it offers “The Cure for the Common Job.”

For those among the ranks of the unemployed, that might be, er, the last hurrah.