The Real Story of John Bell

My job is to take the latest in digital innovations and apply it to our business and our client’s business. Call it applied innovation.

I head up the global 360° Digital Influence team - Ogilvy PR’s global digital practice designed to manage brands in an era when anyone can be an influencer and we are all influenced in new ways.  It connects our brand-building PR expertise with a word of mouth marketing discipline. Our team of Digital Influence Strategists integrates the power of social media – social networks, blogs, Web 2.0 applications - with digital marketing to produce measureable results.  I have developed strategy and executed award-winning programs for clients including BP, Lenovo, Unilever, Intel, Select Comfort and Snap-on.

The first wave of innovation was Interactive Television (iTV) in 1990.  I headed up the Visual Design Studio at Downtown Digital, a joint venture between Viacom and AT&T to create the most futuristic vision of interactive television anyone could imagine. I created programming for kids, gamers, and fully interactive applications for Paramount Studios and Entertainment Tonight.  This model of set-top box delivered interactivity remains a vision for all iTV innovation.

I created the first Interactive Advertisement for American Express during that ITV trial. Then I formed Media Circus Interactive Advertising in New York during the 1990’s. We created award-winning CD-ROMs including designing the first interactive advertisement on Launch, then a CD-ROM zine, for Sony. I also designed the first I-Spy CD-ROM for Scholastic extending the brand into the electronic space and pushing the limits of what an interactive experience could be. At the same time the Internet was exploding. I designed and built complicated transaction sites for Gateway Computers and wild experiments like MTV’s Web service that connected “stringers” all across the country reporting on the music scene in their community (sound a bit like blogging? It should and the year was 1995).

Discovery Channel was one of the first media properties to really experiment with the Web. I was brought in to transform a single Web site into a network of 14 Web properties known as Discovery.com. We had live, online expeditions from the field. Reporters posted stories, audio and video from Australia in search of giant spiders and from the bottom of the ocean where they explored the Titanic wreckage for the first time. All while the events were happening.  I designed and built online experiences for TLC, Animal Planet, Discovery Kids, Discovery Health, Travel Channel not to mention a host of digital TV network sites and global sites.

My experience creating an online adventure service for kids with Discovery Kids, inspired me to join a startup called HiFusion committed to building a unique school-to-home Internet service for the K-12 community. But it was 2000 – a pivotal year for Internet-based business. They sold the company to Sylvan Ventures and moved onto the next adventure. For me that next adventure is Ogilvy.

School

I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Arts in European history and spent a lot of time at the Annenberg School of Communications.

Memberships & Affiliations

• I serve on the board of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA)

• I serve on the advisory board at ifocos.org, hosts of the WeMedia global events 

• I serve on the advisory board to PBS Engage at PBS.org

Teaching

• I am an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University where I teach graduate courses in Digital Influence

Speaking

I routinely speak on social media, digital marketing, word of mouth marketing, public relations and advertising. My expertise is from practice and applying new marketing to client work. Some of the conferences and summits where I have presented include.  

• WOMMA Summit

• WOMM U.

• PRSA

• Community 2.0

• PRWeek Next Conference

• Society for New Communications Research

• The Conference Board