Certainly the glass was beginning to melt away," wrote Lewis Carroll, "Just like a bright silvery mist." Sort of how InterPublic's Emerging Media Lab's partnership with Total Immersion plunges into the misty world of Augmented Reality Advertising.

The fact that it's important to reward consumers for being loyal to your brand is indisputable by now. But how do you do it? One of the most readily accessible examples is the loyalty program. Most are the same: The more you spend, the more points you accumulate and can then redeem for swag, airline miles or discounts. But what does this reward? Certainly not true loyalty; the primary goal behind these programs is essentially to stimulate frequent purchases. And the consumer knows this.

As if sub-prime mortgages, failing hedge funds and institutional bailouts were not enough for 2008, there is yet another crisis brewing on Wall Street. Only in this case the assets cannot be traded away or hedged against inflation. The financial markets think brands are worth more than the consumers who buy them think they are worth.

I doubt there is a reader of this column who doesn't typically view word-of-mouth as one of the most powerful external forces affecting the decisions consumers make about a brand. Indeed, our industry sees it as an important and increasingly more pervasive and commanding phenomenon. Although I agree with this, I'm irked by what appears to be a wide disparity of opinion on whether the majority of consumer word-of-mouth is positive or negative. It's easy to grab a headline with the assertion that the majority of word-of-mouth is negative. But is this really true?

We've been living it for months, and whether you call it an economic slowdown, a downturn or a correction, we know what you mean. All are polite ways of saying the dreaded R-word. And, yes, we are in one now. For all the many challenging things that can happen in this time, it's quite possible that R-time could be the right time - the right aperture - for brands to achieve marketplace success.

People don't watch television the way they used to. Years ago (in fact, many more years ago than some media buyers would care to admit), people watched in a linear fashion. They turned on the TV set, sat down and watched a full program from start to finish without interruption. Well, maybe an occasional bathroom break was the exception. This is no longer the case. People still go to the bathroom, but they also do a lot of other things. The switch to C3 ad ratings is a belated admission of this fact.

Two years ago, MEDIA published one of my early columns, which focused on employee brand engagement. After that column, one executive at an iconic American company sent a note saying, "This just makes sense." Sharing your brand with employees so that they believe in and commit to a common purpose does make sense.

For years now, I've been competing in various endurance sporting events, such as marathon mountain-bike racing and expedition adventure racing. Possibly over-invested in the idea of working hard and playing hard, I find these types of sports have always been mental and physical energy outlets when outside the office, providing me with the rare opportunity to boil life down to a small collection of primal and survival instincts (and lots of super cool gear!). Simply put, it's difficult to think about running an advertising agency when you've been racing for 36 hours and all your body and mind has the …

By the time you read this, you will know the answer to two of possibly the most important questions of our age: Is our economy holding, and which presidential candidate will have to deal with whatever is left? Writing now, amidst the debate over the character implications of moose-killing and the endless SNL impersonations, it's sometimes hard to realize that our entire financial and economic infrastructure is facing a meltdown our generation has never seen - one that is utterly global in impact.

From: Jamie <20something@ilovemedia.com> Subject: Xmas List Date: November 30, 2015 To: Mom Hi, Mom! Can you believe it's Christmas? It feels like just yesterday we were at that 4th of July cookout. Speaking of July, I also can't believe how warm it is this week in New York. I can barely remember the childhood days of sledding through the snow with David. These days I feel lucky to pull out my coat once all winter long.