Today I’m VP Marketing: Media & eCommerce for Bai Brands, the creator of one of the fastest growing beverage brands in the US today- the Bai line of Antoxidant Infusions. Bai currently ranks No. 127 on the Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing private companies, and was named to the Forbes 2015 list of America’s Most Promising Companies, ranked in 13th place among the top 100 recognized organizations. For Bai I focus on marketing, digital marketing, eCommerce, brand strategy, positioning, advertising and media.
My digital media experience dates back before the web to 1992, when I headed up the ad strategy team for the Prodigy Online service at the ad agency Cliff Freeman and Partners (Division of Saatchi & Saatchi). Several years later (in 1996) I had my first experience with search—heading up the AltaVista Search Engine account at DDB advertising (AltaVista was the Google of the late ‘90’s, powering Yahoo Search. For a great account of how AltaVista missed the chance to be the Google of our time, read John Battelle’s The Search). In ’97 I joined CMGI’s AdSmart Network, one of the pioneering display ad networks developing the earliest forms of audience targeting , using what the Wall Street Journal profiled at the time as “huge databases filled with information about consumers” (read the Journal’s article about CMGI’s early work in “Online Ad Titans Choose to Bet Big In Race to Trace Consumers’ Web Tracks” ). In late ’98 I joined Winstar Interactive Media—a site specific rep firm (functioning as an outsourced sales force and sales strategy consultancy) for sites like the search engine Ask Jeeves (later Ask.com), the search engine Northern Lights, and media brands like BHG.com (Better Homes & Gardens online). In May 2001, I joined Advance Digital, part of Advance Publications / Conde Nast (the 14th largest U.S. Media company according to AdAge) as VP Marketing. There I led teams focused on Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Optimization, Content Marketing, Paid Search, and Analytics for 12 U.S. local media sites, including NJ.com, cleveland.com, Oregonlive and Nola.com. I also headed up our Search and Social Group offering SEO and Social Marketing Services to local and regional businesses. In 2013 I joined Bai Brands.
Video Interview at BlueGlassX Conference.
(Watch the full BlueGlassX Video here.)
Presenting on the Basics of Search for CEO’s at ILM East in Boston.
The Local Mobile Search Panel at BlueGlassX: John Denny, Michael Dorausch, David Mihm.
After the Getlisted University Conference Grand Rapids- John Denny, Mike Blumenthal, Will Scott, David Mihm, John Carcutt, Aaron Weiche
I’ve been working in marketing and advertising since 1985, online marketing since 1992, and had my first experience with the revolution that is search working with the pioneering AltaVista search engine in 1996. I’ve run $100 million TV campaigns for Fortune 500 companies and lived the wonderful, reliable era of mass advertising and long client lunches by the Four Seasons LA pool. And what I can tell you having done this for a while is the safe and predictable orbit of your marketing universe has ended. If you are a marketer, advertiser or just a business trying to get a few customers, disruption is here. All that you need to do to get done what you need to get done, is changing very quickly. Social Media, Content Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Paid Search, Analytics and Mobile Marketing are revolutionizing the way you get people to buy whatever it is you’re selling. And you either need to get on the bus and starting tooting the horn, or at the very least figure out how not to get run over. This blog is here to help you do that.