Bob Garfield is a columnist, critic, essayist, pundit, international lecturer and obscure broadcast personality. He isn’t exactly a media whore, but he’s extremely promiscuous.
Garfield’s “Ad Review” is a prominent feature of Advertising Age, where each week he singles out an ad for praise or ridicule and thus has become among the more pitifully groveled-before figures in trade-magazine history.

In another life, Garfield is co-host of National Public Radio’s weekly Peabody Award-winning magazine program “On the Media.” This followed a dozen years as a commentator/correspondent for NPR‘s “All Things Considered.” Dubbed by The New York Times “the Charles Kuralt of Bizarro World,” he specialized in quirky Americana -- an act he took to television, as well, producing pieces for public TV, syndication and CBS News. He also served as a political-advertising analyst for CBS, before being bounced in 1992 following an unfortunate Green Room incident. It was his most traumatic TV experience since “Oprah” in 1991, when he was humiliated by Mr. Whipple before a live studio audience.
For many years, Garfield was the advertising analyst for ABC News. He’s been a regular on Financial News Network, CNBC’s “Power Lunch” and “Adam Smith’s Money Game” on PBS. He also has been quoted by every major American newspaper, news magazine and broadcast news program, owing to his fearless willingness to speak authoritatively on subjects he doesn’t necessarily understand. That technique is the secret behind his third book, The Chaos Scenario, to be released in spring 2009.

As a lecturer, panelist and emcee, he has appeared in 30 countries on five continents, including such venues as the Kennedy Center, the U.S. Capitol, the Rainbow Room, Broadway’s Hudson Theater, the Smithsonian, Circus Circus casino, Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium (Grand Ole Opry), the United Nations and, memorably, the ballroom of the Westward Ho! motel in Grand Forks, N.D.

He is a founding contributor to the Watchdog Blog of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. He’s been a contributing editor for the Washington Post Magazine, Civilization and the op-ed page of USA Today. He has also written for The New York Times, Playboy, Sports Illustrated, Wired and many other publications. A collection of his work, titled Waking Up Screaming from the American Dream, was published by Scribner in 1997, favorably reviewed and quickly forgotten. His 2003 manifesto on advertising, And Now a Few Words From Me, is published in seven languages (although, admittedly, one is Bulgarian). Garfield co-wrote “Tag, You’re It,” a snappy country song performed by Willie Nelson, and wrote an episode of the short-lived NBC sitcom “Sweet Surrender.” It sucked.

Garfield has won many journalism prizes including some big ones and two National Press Club poker championships. He lives in suburban Washington, DC, where, in separate incidents 11 months apart, he has twice been rear-ended by federal employees.

Greg Stielstra is an innovative thinker, speaker, consultant, and author of PyroMarketing: The Four Step Strategy to Ignite Customer Evangelists and Keep Them For Life (HarperCollins, September 2005) www.pyromarketing.comand co-author of Faith-Based Marketing: The Guide to Reaching 140 Million Christian Customers (Wiley, May 2009) www.faithbasedmarketing.com.

An expert in word-of-mouth, faith-based, and social network marketing, Greg owns PyroMarketing, a marketing agency and consultancy in Franklin, TN.

A captivating communicator, he speaks regularly at Word of Mouth Marketing Association conferences and numerous other events including the prestigious Forbes CMO Summit, Ad Tech New York, Taste the Guru Milan and others. His work has been covered by The Economist, Advertising Age, Point Magazine, Business Week, Forbes, Fox and Friends, CNBC, USA Today, Wireless Age, Knowledge at Wharton, the Wharton Leadership Journal, and the book 9 Minds on Marketing.

A marketing executive in the publishing industry for sixteen years, Greg directed the promotions for numerous best-selling books including The Purpose Driven Life, the best-selling hardcover book in history. Business Week called it “A marketing miracle.”

Greg has his Bachelors degree in broadcasting and public relations from Central Michigan University and a Masters degree in business management and marketing from The Aquinas School of Graduate Management. He lives with his wife and children in Franklin, TN