As readers of our September issue may recall, over the summer I spent some time on the campus of Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., where I received a quick immersion in the university's work in the field of media. While media studies pervade almost every aspect of the school, its hub is the Center for Media Design, a three-year-old project that got kick-started with a $20 million endowment from Eli Lilly and Co., the Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical giant. The school just received a second $20 million grant from Lilly to continue its research and development on new uses of media …

Grocery stores in California, New York, and Florida received a sneak peek at a portable new ad medium. Grabb-it, set to roll out nationally the first quarter of 2006, is made out of cardboard and forms a handle to hold each plastic grocery bag securely. The visible side displays an advertiser, while the unseen side contains a coupon from the sponsored brand. Clients so far include ConAgra, Air Wick, Altoids, and Mountain Dew. Grabb-it declined to name the grocery stores involved in the experimental rollout.

As marketers bemoan diminishing returns from TV and print efforts targeting 18- to 24-year-olds, many see out-of-home media as a savior. The University Network has emerged as a new option, promising the exposure on major college campuses that many advertisers crave.

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There is an alternative medium that doesn't get the attention it deserves: point of sale. Obviously, it's a consumer touch point and a setting for merchandising and transactions. But it's a medium, too. Approaching it as a medium involves a whole new way of thinking about how to interact with consumers wandering the aisles. It's not just about retailing. It's also about communication.

We should all believe in the power of dreams. For this December yearend issue, I thought it would be appropriate to look back at a campaign which has had the most holistic, inventive, and transformative marketplace effect. It represents not only my selection, but almost every awards jury selection, as the best "new next" of the year. We can also look forward and hope that campaigns like this set a new benchmark in 2006, and that they serve to inspire a new world of optimism, inventiveness, and creativity.

As demand rises for more accurate reach and frequency estimates for ad schedules using multiple forms of media, researchers are turning to various types of data integration and fusion techniques. This column focuses on the rationale for using such approaches, the assumptions underlying these approaches, and the best way they can be evaluated in terms of their utility and accuracy.

You can feel the tremors. A major earthquake is about to disrupt television as we know it. This year, the piping companies are working hard to replace the old platforms of broadcast, cable, and satellite with Internet portals. Verizon and SBC Communications made major investments to build Internet TV portals. Comcast recently reacted by telling Wall Street about its own Internet TV portal under development that will be fully stocked with programs, movies, interactive features, and a new-fangled television search engine. Then Comcast created more buzz with hints of partnership talks with Google and interest in acquiring a piece of …

What's your aperture moment? Over the past months we've explored consumer aperture moments -- the windows in which people are most receptive to receiving your message. Sometimes the best way to explore the value and application of a concept is to put it within the context of our own life experience.

Back in the carefree days of the cold war, one of the greatest pieces of literature -- as instructive as literature gets in revealing the real truths in life-- was George Orwell's Animal Farm. The allegory of farm animals throwing out the humans, and in due course taking on all the traits of human frailty, insecurity, and power-grabbing, offered concise parallels in the hypocrisy of totalitarian and/or communist regimes. It was required reading for high school and college students around the nation.