He created the term "consumer-generated media" (CGM) to better characterize the significance of blogs, social networking pages, message boards, forums, direct feedback, product review sites, etc., and is the author of Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3000: Running a Business in Today’s Consumer-Driven World, published by Doubleday in 2008. Among Pete’s core expertise is helping companies promote and protect their brands through the measurement, analysis, and interpretation of CGM, now also considered “online word of mouth.”
His role as tireless champion of today’s digital world is now benefiting Nestle. It’s almost one year since he’s taken on the responsibility of Global Head of Digital Marketing & Social Media—leaving Cincinnati Ohio, his home since 1995, for Vevey, Switzerland. His sweeping role is to provide Nestle brands, with their wide range of social media programs, more coherence and alignment across global marketing and corporate communications activities.
Pete’s background is nothing short of inspiring.
Prior to his position at Nestle, he served as Chief Marketing Officer of NM Incite, the collaboration between Nielsen and consulting firm McKinsey, created to improve businesses performance by realizing social media intelligence and consumer insights. NM Incite operates in 25 global markets.
The Nielsen/McKinsey role was the culmination of Pete’s entrepreneurial years.
He founded PlanetFeedback.com in 1999 as an Internet portal focused on consumer feedback. Three years later, Planetfeedback was acquired by Cincinnati-based marketing intelligence firm Intelliseek, where Pete served as Chief Marketing & Customer Satisfaction Officer. During this time, he also co-founded the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), and continues to serve on its board. Intelliseek was acquired by BuzzMetrics in 2006.
Nielsen then purchased both NetRatings and BuzzMetrics in 2007, and combined the two companies to form Nielsen Online. Pete served as CMO of BuzzMetrics, which helps companies better understand the power of online consumers who share experiences, advice, opinions on topics ranging from customer service to product performance. Today, BuzzMetrics is part of NM Incite.
A Harvard Business School grad, his initial marketing training, though, was at Procter & Gamble as a brand manager in the paper sector. However, the online impetus appeared even then—the mid ‘90s. He helped co-found P&G first interactive marketing unit with early initiatives like online sampling and online advertising qualification.
He’s also given back to his Cincinnati home. In the last decade, Pete fostered the idea of an advertising museum in Over-the-Rhine, the Cincinnati historic district with the largest collection of Italianate architecture in the US. The neighborhood's name comes from 19th century German immigrants who walked to work across bridges over the canals that separated the district from downtown Cincinnati. The canal became known as "the Rhine" in reference to Germany’s Rhine River.
Pete also contributed to establishing Cincinnati as a consumer marketing “Hub of Innovation” with a state designation that provided $250,000 in seed money to promote the industry’s growth.
