Testing a customised dietary supplement - The ultimate product review

I'm feeling very creative, very fruity, so I want to try something I've never tried before: I want this blog post to have an awesome soundtrack, so while reading the rest listen to Giorgio Moroder at the same time.

Go!

At the end of November 2013 I received this e-mail:

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Hello there!

I was wondering if you might be interested in doing a review for our product on your blog. We are a very small, Prague-based company that offers custom dietary supplement (i.e. make your own) and as far as we know, we are the only ones in Europe to offer this.

We have been in business for 6 months or so and now we finally made an English version and started shipping abroad. We won the Idea of the Year contest here in Prague, but that was back in May.

We believe that everyone is capable of safely choosing their own supplement and we want to spread the message around the interwebs.

So what do you think, could we send you a bottle for review? We are open to all kinds of ideas...

See our website at www.mixturam.com.

All the best,

Erik - Mixturam.com

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I applauded Erik for his correct use of the word interwebs. Everyone with any sense knows that both The Internet and the World Wide Web are made out of a series of interwebs and thus THE INTERWEBS is the correct term to use when talking about not only every connection on The Internet but also every network using the World Wide Web.

Not everyone knows this,
Only the best people,
So I knew I could trust this man.

 I replied:

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Hi Erik,

I had a look at your website and it looks like a really cool product. I'd be happy to review your product if you could send me a batch for free. Is that what you are proposing? If so I will get mixing!

Let me know how we can proceed with this.

All the best,

Chris

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He quickly got back to me. He told me I would receive the product for free. He also said that there would be no deadline for the article "just write it when it works for you. Of course, the sooner the better, but we understand you still need to get to know the product well."

So that is what I did. These are the ingredients I threw into the mix:

• Vitamin C (278mg)
• Inositol (142mg)
• L-Citrulline (135mg)
• Activated Barley (126mg)
• Lecithin (125mg)
• DMAE (19mg)

On the website each ingredient was categorised using various tags.

For example:

DMAE for [Memory], [Concentration] and [Energy]

 L-Citrulline for [Immunity], [Sex] and [Energy]

and Activated Barley for [Immunity], [Detox] and [Energy]

I received the parcel a few weeks later and to my surprise I'd received two whole bottles of Chris Cooley's Daily Dose

The timing couldn't have been more perfect. It was almost the new year and I was planning on making a New Year's Resolution for 2014:

"To do better!"

I woke up on New Years day and couldn't move because of a bad back. I crawled up the wall and eventually was able to walk to a friends house for a meal and a Gallette des Rois. When I got home I took my first Daily Dose and said to myself once again "I will do better this year."

I'd been living in France for a couple of months and I was still struggling to get to grips with the basics of the language. It is now the start of March and while the language acquisition is still going slowly, but I've been starting to retain a little bit more. I don't know if it is the tablets or not.

I wanted to play badminton the other week but everyone else that usually plays with me was sick. Not me. 

I've been shopping in markets rather than supermarkets and cooking better meals.

I bought some bed sheets and pillows from IKEA so I've finally got a nice set-up, rather than using the trampy pillow that was here before, a duvet with no cover, and a bobbly undersheet.

Spring clean the entire apartment. Tick.

I'm back in school. 

Oh and just the other night I got a blowjob in a stairwell then had sex on the steps up to a girls apartment. Any of the neighbours could have walked past, but did I care?

I do continue to get so drunk that I black out, but the next day it doesn't take long until "I'm fine" again.

My flatmate Olivier has been taking my pills too. He was unemployed for 6 months at the end of last year but in early 2014 he managed to secure a good job. He started last week and says it is easy. He goes on a lot of runs now as well. He calls himself The New Olivier.

In order to keep this review unbiased I should add that I don't know whether or not it is the pills or my own free will that has brought about this new man, this New Chris. I suppose we will never know............. that is until the bottles they sent me run out.

To be continued (?) in INTERWEB SUPPLEMENT PUSHERS - An Exposé
 

How to get a job in Content Marketing

I worked in content marketing for the last 10 months. It was fun and I learnt a lot, but yesterday it ended. I quit.

I am moving to France to learn the language. Its highly likely that I'll, once again, be behind a bar rather than a screen. 

Since I no longer have a stake in the industry, I thought I would share the secret of how I got into the world of blogs, keywords, infographics, 'outreach' and linkbait. This is the story of how, and why, I used a video application to get a job in content marketing.

Leaving university

At university I studied magazine publishing and wrote a dissertation about customer magazines (a form of content marketing.)

After finishing I got a job with a small magazine in Gibraltar. I got fired within 3 days, but I'd seen enough to know that the magazine was going nowhere. It was a hyperlocal-monthly-print-publication that used the free model: its only revenue coming from the sale of adverts. It competed against a few other similar endeavors; all chasing the limit advertising budgets of local companies (restaurants and cosmetic surgeries).

After looking for similar jobs in Spain, on other magazines and newspapers, I realised what a small and shrinking industry print was. It was time to embrace the future and go digital. 

Out of necessity I returned to London to look for jobs. I decided I would help brands create their own media: articles, videos etc. So instead of placing adverts next to interesting editorial the brands themselves would provide the audience with editorial of value.

To find companies to apply to, I didn't look in a telephone directory or anything like that, I just Googled 'content marketing London'.

Using a video cover letter

I wanted to get into video production as I'd recently made a short documentary and believed that video offered the most holistic form of communication. So I applied using a video cover letter. 

Quad Digital (an agency with offices on a boat) was the third company I contacted. They replied within 10 minutes, and following a face-to-face interview, I'd landed a job. The whole process took less than two weeks.

Here is the video:

I re-recorded the narration for each application, tailoring it to each individual company.