'The Naked Brand' finds that Venn intersection of logic and emotion and invites you to embrace the possibilities. To see it is to want to race to work the next day. It's just plain inspiring. Goddamn it.

As counterintuitive as this may sound, but a fact long since enshrined in the literature of psychology, is that human beings will identify with those they have been called upon to assist. This is called The Ben Franklin Effect, named after the inventor/ publisher/diplomat/lothario/C-note star who first described it.

KOHLER, Wisc. - The answer was all around them. Five panelists sat onstage considering the problem: "Proving Social ROI to the CFO." The occasion was the MediaPost Brand Marketing Summit. The venue was The American Club, a resort where the WASPy tradition infuses every cubic inch of the sprawling campus, like the fireplace smoke that clings to the leather chairs in the hoary library. Compared to this place, the Ritz-Carlton is a kibbutz.

For years, the Cannes Festival was a money machine because nobody ever went broke catering to the vanity and hedonism of the advertising industry. Now it is a money juggernaut, because it has found a marketplace even more lucrative than vanity.

I've been working on a book about the dawning Relationship Era -- in which brands must find human connections between themselves and stakeholders, as opposed to purchasing attention in order to persuade strangers to buy something.

This is a cry for help. There is something I just nearly did, just moments ago -- something weak and common. Somehow I managed to veer away at the last instant, but I don't know how much longer I can resist. Is there some sort of sponsor I can call? Someone I can turn to when, at long last, I can no longer summon the inner strength? My name is Bob, and I just nearly clicked on: Snooki's Cellphone Hacked, Nude Pictures Hit the Web [REPORT] 12.

Never mind Hollywood and New York. If you're looking to keep the TV industry alive, maybe you should think about Emerald City. Perhaps you recall Dorothy, small and meek. She schlepped around Oz for two and a half hours with three freaks and a Cairn terrier trying to find the wizardry to get her back to Kansas. They dodged flying monkeys, spent a night doing mad opiates, and brutally melted Cora, the Maxwell House lady -- not realizing that Dorothy had the power to get home all along. All she had to do was click her heels three times and …

Seven years ago, amid flying spittle and other signs of deep agitation, a notorious crank predicted the end of network television by 2020. Audience hyper-fragmentation, DVR ad avoidance, online competition and the immutable law of supply and demand were conspiring, this guy claimed, to undermine broadcast's business model.

In college, one of my pals bought an 80-watt Dynaco stereo control amp kit and painstakingly built it over four months. That fall, he pulled a 0.2 GPA - a lost semester that cost him, after figuring in his $30 savings on the amp, about two thousand 1974 dollars. I bought the identical model, pre-assembled, and listened to music while he soldered.The point of the story? One is to beware of false economies. The other is that I'm no DIY boy.

It is a great pleasure now being associated with MediaPost, a position I attained thanks in no small part to a resume compiled over many decades and a spotless reputation. However, in the past few days, a few matters have arisen that I believe must be cleared up before they get blown out of proportion.