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

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.

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

Less than two weeks from now (April 17), I’ll be running yet another Boston Marathon (it’ll be the eighth time I’ve made the same journey, the fifth time for charity), and I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to this very special day.

I’ve enjoyed running since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, so for me, no matter how many times I’ve gone the distance, running Boston is still the thrill of a lifetime, a childhood dream come remarkably true.

I’m lucky, though. Some children’s dreams are mercilessly dashed due to dread, debilitating diseases and disorders that you and I can’t even begin to imagine. Their challenge isn’t a marathon – it’s life itself, one difficult day at a time, courageously contending with poor health, waiting for a cure, hoping to prevail despite seemingly overwhelming odds.

It’s for these children that I’ll be running the Boston Marathon this year as one of the few, proud members of Children’s Hospital’s Miles for Miracles Team Boston, raising funds for one of the best pediatric hospitals in the country.

Hailey, 7, My Children’s Hospital Boston Patient Partner

I’ll be running Boston for children like my patient partner, Hailey, 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 (she was born on May 26, 1998), but she’s already suffered 51 broken bones and undergone a number of serious surgeries. Thanks to Children’s Hospital Boston, however, Hailey’s OI is under control, and she’s living her young life to the fullest.

Your sponsorship of my run will mean a great deal to me, but it’ll mean even more to the doctors, nurses and staff at Children’s Hospital Boston – and the patients, like Hailey, in their care.

Give Now and Get a $5 Olive Garden Gift Certificate

This time around, I’ve committed to raise a minimum of $3,500 for Children’s, and I’ve received 65 donations (from 65 kind souls) so far for a total of $2,919. So I really do need your support if I’m going to reach, if not exceed, my fundraising goal. Every dollar counts, especially in these last few days leading up to the big event.

Please help me help make dreams come true for more boys and girls. Please sponsor my Boston Marathon run with a gift of $25, $15, $50 or more to Children’s Hospital Boston. I’ll be so grateful for your support.

As a small token of my appreciation, I’ll mail the next six people to contribute to my cause a $5 gift certificate redeemable at any Olive Garden Italian Restaurant. (Olive Garden was kind enough to donate these certificates, so the next time I take my family out to dinner there, I plan to thank the manager in person.)

To make a secure, online donation to my Children’s Hospital Boston fundraising campaign right here and now, simply follow these instructions…

1. Go to www.chtrust.org/bostonmarathon.
2. Click on “Sponsor a Runner/Give Online” on the right-hand side
of the screen.
3. Enter my name, “Bob Cargill” and/or my Profile ID (CB0022) in
the “Search for a Runner to Sponsor” fields.
4. Click on my name, “Bob Cargill,” under Search Results, in the middle of the page.
5. Donate to Children’s Hospital Boston.

Of course, if you prefer, you may write a check – payable to Children’s Hospital Boston – and return it to my attention at 33 Oakwood Avenue, Sudbury, MA 01776.

Me and Hailey, the day before I ran the Boston Marathon last spring.

Whatever you can do to help support my Boston Marathon run for Children’s Hospital Boston – and Hailey – please do it today. I’ll appreciate it. The hospital will appreciate it. And, most of all, the children will appreciate it. It is on their behalf that I just can’t thank you enough.

Note: To read about the other four times I’ve run the Boston Marathon for charity (in ‘96 for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, in ‘02 and ‘03 for The Home for Little Wanderers and in ‘05 for Children’s Hospital Boston), click here, here, here, here and here.

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

Ted Demopoulos (public speaker, consultant, blogger and co-author – with Shel Holtz – of the book, “Blogging for Business” ), guest posting on Business BlogWire, writes about the four types of business blogs…

1) Internal blogs: Internal blogs are used for internal company or project communications, and are not available on the Internet.

2) Problogs: I call blogs started primarily to make money, for example through advertising and affiliate programs, problogs.

3) Company Blogs: These are blogs started to help support an existing company or product.

4) Independent professional blogs: These are similar to company blogs, but are written – and owned – by individuals.

About the latter type, Ted cites two examples of independent professional blogs, Steve Rubel’s Micro Persuasion and my blog, A New Marketing Commentator. And I must say that I’m flattered just to be mentioned in the article, never mind in the same sentence with one of the most illustrious among us here in the blogosphere.

Tags: blog blogs blogging Bob Cargill Steve Rubel Ted Demopoulos business blogs blogosphere

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 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