It was a year of amazing work, and unsurpassed video consumption, with consumers snacking on video via phone, tablet and laptop. Not all are stellar. Here are 10 the universe should spit out. You'd think that brand mavens and marketers would have realized by now that every piece of content is, or will soon be, viral. With the exception of those who have taken a monastic vow to avoid all online video, most of us are seeing as many brand videos and ads online as we are off. There are exceptions — those ubiquitous holiday-time auto ads remain …

Some campaigns are bound to bring out the green-eyed monster. Seven original thinkers tell OMMA about the year’s ads that made them say, “Wish I’d thought of that.” Wish I'd thought of…Nike’s TweetboardAlan SiegelFounder, SiegelvisionIn our day consumers have been exposed to many admirable advertising campaigns, including some that sparkle with inventiveness and wit. The challenge for today’s marketers, though, is not to broadcast and entertain but to engage. To me, the most impressive branding program is …

At last, truly targetable display advertising reaches scale Life insurance doesn’t exactly seem like a likely spot for digital innovation. After all, it’s an American industry that’s actually older than America (the Corporation for Relief of Poor and Distressed Presbyterian Ministers, eventually owned by Nationwide, started selling policies in 1759). Sales of term life insurance, the most commonly owned, have been in decline since 1960. And while digital channels have done wonders for consumers’ need for instant gratification, buying life insurance takes practically forever: It’s typically a …

The future of advertising isn't advertising," says Rei Inamoto, chief creative officer of AKQA. It's a funny thing for one of the most decorated advertising executives of the decade - a guy whose life revolves around selling products - to say. Or is it? Then again, it's the sort of Zen koan admen have been lobbing since David Ogilvy tread Madison Avenue. Before you shout, "Explain yourself, Rei!" be sure of two things: He isn't really going to, and he's got another one for you: "We live in a world where change is the only constant," says Inamoto. "That's the …

Geotargeted mobile advertising is political advertising's new technological toy this fall. Candidates and Super pac advertisers will exploit mobile not only to deliver their newest attack ads, but to draw supporters to a candidate's nearby rally, pass out campaign literature or just get out the vote on Election Day. Or -- and most crucially -- raise money for campaigns.

Design by platform and gamification are helping direct hit its targets, despite its data problems Taming the Big Data Beast is the #1 thing practitioners mention when asked to identify the trends in direct response marketing.What direct response actually is these days ranks as #2.For the purposes of this discussion, we’re using a wide-ranging definition that encompasses anything a marketer does with the hopes of stirring active engagement and participation by the consumer. That includes email, social, mobile, certain forms of display advertising, search …

At a publication like OMMA, it’s almost a given that we spend hours (ok, days) dodging hype, superlatives and horsepucky. We love our platforms as much as the next media maven, but we work in a self-congratulatory world. Radical. Dramatic. Transformative. Innovative. Revolutionary. Game-changing. Almost every pitch we see uses these words.Yet, most of the time, we know it just isn’t true. From major overhauls to minor tweaks, digital marketing is evolving. But let’s call them upgrades, not revolutions. News that truly transforms the way a business or platform functions is rare. That’s why we devoted …

It's no secret that football and technology go together like ranch dressing and wings. But nothing has caught on as quickly as the humble iPad, which is now used by a wide swath of college and professional teams. Sarah Mahoney caught up with Chad Q. Brown, business director for DragonFly Athletics, to find out why drafting the tablet has been so transformative.

As one platform unfolds into another, advertisers find new flight patterns everywhere Trying to predict the growth cycle of any one digital platform has gotten more difficult every day. As we pulled together our report for omma Global Fall 2012, we couldn’t help but laugh, again, at the number of times the industry got it all wrong. Display isn’t dead; it’s actually growing. Ditto direct response. Video, once seen as a low-budget refuge for second-rate campaigns, now drives mobile and social, and has challenged the way the …

Brands are finding ways — new and old — to woo consumers. Tasked with creating an engaging vehicle to highlight JetBlue Getaways packages — which combine flights, hotels, ground transportation and more — the airline’s senior vice president of marketing and commercial, Marty St. George, and his team decided to put a Millennial spin on a tried-and-true media trope: the game show.According to St. George, the “big-vacation-to-wherever”-type prizes described in breathless fashion on vintage programs like The Price Is Right served as his primary …