Throughout Pete's varied experiences in marketing, government and entrepreneurship runs a common theme - the power of the Internet to give individuals a voice and change the way things are done. He coined the term "consumer- generated media" (CGM) and authors a blog by that same name. Earlier this Spring, Pete received one of three “Industry Achievement” awards at Ad-Tech San Francisco. The award honors “those who have given long-term dedication and consistent outstanding service to online marketing.” He’s also a recently elected board member of the National Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB)
Pete presently serves as Executive Vice-President of Nielsen Online Digital Strategic Services, a newly established group within Nielsen dedicated to helping brands develop data-grounded online strategies in a host of key areas: online content, reputation management, brand advocacy, and customer satisfaction. The group draws from Pete’s core expertise in helping companies promote and protect their brands through the measurement, analysis, and interpretation of CGM – or online word of mouth – across forums, message boards, social networking sites, direct company feedback, online communities and blogs. Nielsen Online is a combination of BuzzMetrics (a firm Pete helped co-found) and Nielsen NetRatings. Prior to BuzzMetrics, Pete was Chief Marketing and Customer Satisfaction Officer for Cincinnati based Intelliseek.
Pete is a co-founder of the 2004 Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), and presently sits on its board and co-chairs its ethics committee. He presently authors a bi-weekly column on digital marketingpetepic5 strategy targeted to Chief Marketing Officers for the ClickZ marketing network. He's frequently quoted in major publications, and he authors several work and personal blogs, including Hybridbuzz and parenting centered blog Dosbebes. On Facebook, Pete manages the Consumer Generated Media , Digital Cincinnati ,and Web 2.0 Dads groups.
In 1999, Pete founded PlanetFeedback.com, one of the web’s longest running online consumer feedback services. Over a million consumers have written letters or submitted comments to the popular service, and the insights and commentary from the site have helped Pete deepen his expertise on consumer attitudes toward brands, advertising, word-of-mouth, and customer service.
While at Procter & Gamble, Pete led initiatives dealing with online advertising development, onlinepetepic1 issues/rumor management, online sampling, database marketing and consumer word-of-mouth behavior. He also co-chaired and organized the P&G sponsored Future of Advertising Stakeholders Summit (FAST-Summit). In 1998, Pete’s work culminated P&G being named Advertising Age Magazine’s “Interactive Marketer of the Year.” Two years later, Advertising Age named Pete one of the nation’s top twenty individual interactive marketers.
Before receiving his master's degree from Harvard Business School in 1995, Blackshaw served as a press secretary and legislative consultant to then-Senator Art Torres in the California Legislature, where he guided several consumer-focused bills to passage and initiated the nation's first "interactive" legislative hearing. He helped approve the nation’s first legislative effort making legislative data available to California citizens for free through the internet. Prior to working for Torres, he served as a California Executive Fellow, working in the Governor’s office as a education policy maker.
Pete graduated from the University of California at Santa Cruz, where he helped create the logo for the school's iconoclastic mascot, the Banana Slug. Pete is happily married to Erika Brown, a New Jersey Native and currently a brand manager at a major consumer packaged goods company. Pete and Erika are the proud parents of two and a half year old twins Liam and Leila, and 14 week old Sophia.