• Fast Forward
    Like many of you, I spend a good deal of time thinking about the subjects of media and faith, but until recently I never actually linked the two together. Unlike organized religion, which has always been about media (the Torah, the Bible, the Koran, Tao-Te-Ching, etc.), I've always viewed faith as a largely personal experience, and I doubt any two people hold the exact same beliefs about anything, even within the same religious sect. Except for advertising, maybe. Okay, so advertising's not a religion - not a formal one, anyway - but the zealots on Madison Avenue …
  • Column: Econometrics - Modeling Mix Expertise Counts
    In the marketing research community there's an ongoing debate about the "best" statistical approaches to building marketing models. Champions of different methodologies debate findings, claims, and counterclaims back and forth like teenagers arguing about the best new rock bands. Logarithmic. Bayesian. Additive-linear. Pooled. Store-level. Every technique has passionate proponents. Unfortunately, this rhetoric often springs not from clients or objective research, but from vendors attempting to differentiate themselves from competitors. These confusing competitive claims obscure the more important facts: Marketing models are tools, built to address specific issues. Depending on the goal and specific circumstances, they …
  • Column: The New Next - Let's Cut Out the Bull
    Let's hear it for the unsung heroes, especially those wonderful folks who pay our bills. When contemplating this month's column, it occurred to me that one community that often goes without credit for great innovation and ideas is the marketing/client community. The advertising and media industries are full of awards where we pat ourselves on the back for great ideas and executions, but seldom do we share the podium with our clients who, let's face it, deserve much more credit. So this month, we're going to redress the balance somewhat, and look at an incredible in-house contribution from Deloitte Consulting, …
  • Media Metrics: RFID Technology Makes Print Interactive
    Like other analog media, print is finding ways of going digital in an effort to make its editorial and advertising content unbounded by the constraints of paper and ink. For magazines, this has meant publishing on the Web and the creation of digital editions that use a variety of electronic publishing formats. New technologies are emerging that can give the printed page an electronic backchannel with interactive features for readers, advertisers, and publishers alike.
  • Column: Measurement - Cultivating New Media Sciences
    Why is media planning becoming an art form again? Twenty years ago, media science began its ascendance and injected empirical analyses into the artful form of media planning. Digital technology has changed the dynamics of innovation by making media platforms independent.
  • Column: Aperture - Jimi Hendrix Sold Strats
    It was the '60s - peace, love, and music was in the air. Every kid wanted to be a rock star. If you were serious about playing guitar, you wanted a white Fender Stratocaster. Why? Hendrix, of course.
  • Column: Productivity - Multitasking Mayhem
    Everybody feels like they have little free time, so everyone is searching for more. Time has become the most precious resource of all, trumping money and material things as the epitome of success. The people who have made it, are people with no time to waste.
  • Column: Gestalt - Bell the Cat or Ride the Horse
    There is a story about a group of mice that met one day to complain about the aggressive house cat that constantly ambushed them. They brainstormed many ideas to fix the situation when, one mouse declared: "We can put a bell around his neck, so we'll always have fair warning when he's coming!" There was much rejoicing at the brilliance of this plan - all agreed it was the perfect and obvious solution - until one mouse meekly asked: "But which one of us is going to put the bell on him?"
  • Column: Out There - Meeting Up for Meeting's Sake
    While consumer context planning (CCP) has gained a respectable foothold in the media industry, we're not ready for our own conference. So, suffering from conference withdrawal I set out to find myself a conference that might appeal to a CCP. I considered the American Association of Advertising Agencies, but it seemed a little too broad and is already adequately covered by my colleagues. Then there were some media research conferences I considered, but they seemed too specific and metrics driven, and frankly, not that interesting.
  • Column: Branded - Upfront Hangover
    So far, branded entertainment has been largely a robbing-peter-to-pay-paul proposition. According to an Association of National Advertisers' survey, unveiled at the recent ANA Television Advertising Forum, over half (52 percent) of the 118 surveyed marketers admitted that their branded entertainment efforts were bankrolled by their TV budget.
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