Seeing the Edge with NW Marketing Guy - Rod Brooks

WOMMA Executive Committee Elected By Board

December 15, 2010

The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), the organization dedicated to advancing and advocating the discipline of credible word of mouth marketing, recently announced the new officers and members of the 2011 Executive Committee. The new officers include:

President: Rod Brooks, Vice President & CMO, PEMCO Mutual Insurance Company

Brooks has enjoyed tremendous success during his 35 year career in sales, marketing, and business development roles. He is known for his vision, leadership, and ability to transform vision into effective corporate strategy and unique implementation plans. In 1999, Brooks took the marketing helm at PEMCO. With the role came the opportunity to help transform an analytical operations-based organization into a dynamic customer-centric, market-driven and results-oriented organization. Brooks calls the insurance business one of the biggest marketing challenges he’s faced, and he views PEMCO’s current campaign as one of his more rewarding.

President Elect: David Witt, Senior Manager Social Engagement, General Mills

At General Mills, Witt currently works on the Yoplait team, where he manages all traditional media relations, word of mouth and social media for the brand. Additionally, Witt leads word of mouth and social media efforts at General Mills, and led the creation of the Psst’ and MyBlogSpark networks for the company. Before joining General Mills, Witt held positions as a concert and festival producer and promoter, sports and event marketing, and brand public relations.

Secretary: Blake Cahill, Principal, Banyan Branch

Cahill has more than 18 years of executive management experience leading marketing, sales, branding, product management, customer acquisition and customer support organizations both domestically and internationally in a variety of technology, consumer, and telecommunications companies. At Banyan Branch, a leading social media agency based in Seattle, Cahill is responsible for client acquisition, customer execution strategies, and marketplace awareness efforts. Prior to Banyan Branch, Cahill was CMO at Visible Technologies.

Treasurer: Ed Keller, CEO, Keller Fay Group

Keller has been called “one of the most recognized names in word of mouth.” The Keller Fay Group is a specialist market research firm focused exclusively on word of mouth marketing. Keller’s book, “The Influentials,” co-authored by Jon Berry, has been called the “seminal moment in the development of word of mouth” and has been featured in leading publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Fortune, and other. Keller is a frequent speaker on word of mouth marketing and is a board member of the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF).

Executive Committee Member at Large: David Binkowski, EVP, Digital Marketing, Lippe Taylor

Binkowski is the executive vice president of marketing at Lippe Taylor, a New York-based brand communications agency. Binkowski was named to the Member Ethics Advisory Panel for the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) and helped develop their Blogger Relations Ethics Code. Binkowski is a sought after speaker on online ethics, blogging, social media and digital strategy at top industry events and regularly consults senior leadership at Fortune 500 companies on these issues.

Executive Committee Member at Large: David Rabjohns, CEO, MotiveQuest LLC

Rabjohns is CEO and founder of MotiveQuest, a leading global strategic planning consultancy specializing in helping companies manage the marketing and business implications of the Social Computing Revolution. MotiveQuest uses their unique “Online Anthropology” approach to develop models of consumer emotion and loyalty. The company focuses their energies on uncovering fresh new business building insights and lives their motto “Fearlessly Seeking the Reasons Why”. At MotiveQuest, Rabjohns has worked on a wide range of global clients like Citibank, Nike, HP, MINI and agencies like Goodby, Fallon, DDB, Edelman and Digitas.

The new executive committee members will begin their terms January 1, 2011.

About WOMMA

WOMMA is the leading trade association in the marketing and advertising industries that focuses on word of mouth, consumer-generated and social media platforms - or marketing techniques that include buzz, viral, community, and influencer marketing, as well as brand blogging. The organization is committed to developing and maintaining appropriate ethical standards for marketers and advertisers engaging in such marketing practices, identifying meaningful measurement standards for such marketing practices, and defining “best practices” for the industry.

Founded in 2004, WOMMA currently has approximately 300 members. They include marketers and brands that use word-of-mouth marketing to reinforce their core customers and to reach out to new consumers, agencies that deliver word-of-mouth services and technologies, researchers that track the word-of-mouth experience and offline and online practitioners.