CRYSTAL JUMP BALL -- Bob Coen's ad forecasts are an important benchmark for anyone trying to understand how advertising markets work. It's not so much that Coen's semiannual predictions for ad spending increases or decreases are all that much better than anyone else's--from what we've observed over the years, they are not.

OUT OF THE BOX -- A product placement here, a product placement there, and pretty soon you're talking about some really branded entertainment dollars. How real? Well, according to the media tabulators at PQ Media, it's already more than a $3.5 billion marketplace.

SWITCH PITCH -- It was probably inevitable that given the current rate of advertising role reversing, a major agency was bound to hold a review for clients to pitch its services. Just consider what's already happened in the past year alone: * Consumers have begun pitching ad accounts.