Well, not quite. Or at least not yet. But Activate CEO and OMMA "What Is Content" panel moderator Michael Wolf kicked his panel off by conceding, "I hate the word content. It feels like filler. I made a pie and I filled it with blueberries."

That's what Kia marketing chief Michael Sprague just confirmed with Marketing Daily's Karl Greenberg during OMMA Global.

Michael Sprague Is like the Rodney Dangerfield of automotive marketer. The EVP-Marketing and Communications of Kia Motors America says he just can't get any respect. Speaking to Marketing Dialy's Karl Greenberg during an interview at OMMA Global in New York, Sprague said Kia got huge accolades when it broke its latest "Soul" campaign featuring the hip-hopping hamsters, but people responded, "Oh yeah, but it's still a Kia."

Domestically, Kia's market share has grown for 17 consecutive years, and its sales numbers continue to rise. So, what's eating Michael Sprague, CMO of Kia Motors? What's "weighing me down is the perception of the old Kia," he told OMMA Global attendees on Tuesday afternoon. Despite the brand's recent innovation, consumers now hold onto their cars for an average of 8-to-10 years. What that means, Sprague explained, is that shoppers really haven't taken a close look at Kia for nearly a decade. What's more, Kia's brand awareness is currently about 60%, according to Sprague. That's not bad, he says, but …

In late 2010, YouTube debuted its TrueView in-stream ad format, which lets consumers skip in-stream pre-roll ads, and only charges advertisers for those ads that consumers actually watch. How's it doing? Well, after examining 92 TrueView campaigns, Google reported Tuesday that within two weeks of a campaign's debut, every dollar invested in YouTube returned (on average) $1.70 in sales. That, according to the search giant, is 2.4 times more efficient than TV ads. Google also found that TrueView ads led to a 36% increase in site visits, on average, and a 36% boost in searches for featured brands. Yet, as …

Will QR codes gain traction before NFC takes over? QR codes have gotten slammed for being little more than "a bright shiny object" before then next thing comes along, like mobile payments. Backing up the criticism, Harry Kargman, CEO of mobile publishing network Kargo, said the company's efforts over the last two years to integrate codes into mobile marketing programs haven't paid off. "We haven't seen the kind of uptake we would've hoped," he said, speaking on an OMMA Mobile panel on the topic. QR code vendors on the panel including Scanbuy and SpyderLynk pointed the finger back at marketers. …

In the mobile arena, Kraft is best known for its iFood Assistant app. But the CPG giant is expanding its mobile strategy beyond apps to integrate it more closely with TV and retail. Speaking at OMMA Global on Tuesday, B. Bonin Bough, who now leads media and consumer engagement at snack-food giant Mondelez, following the formal split yesterday of Kraft Foods into Kraft Food Group and Mondelez, outlined four key elements of the company’s mobile strategy: Video equivalency—We know more and more people watching video on devices, so Kraft started working with cable and network partners to move more spending …

Lauren Sella, Brand Manager fir iD Gum at Kraft, er Mondelez, just followed B. Bonin Bough's presentation by showing how it's being brought to life for its new iD Gum brand. The brand, which is targeted at teens, different versions of its packaging that relates to games consumers can play with them. In other words, the brand packaging has actually become an interactive gaming platform.

That's what B. Bonin Bough, vice president-global media and consumer engagement at Kraft had to say during a mobile session at OMMA this morning. Actually, scratch that, Bough isn't with Kraft. He's with Mondelez International. No, I'm not smoking pot. And neither is Bough, but he took the stage for his keynote, noting he has a new job today, because Kraft spun off its global snack foods business into the improbably branded Mondelez.

There's not a cable channel in the world that can meet consumers' increasingly niche content demands, insists Suzie Reider, Head of Industry Development at YouTube. "That's where online video comes in," she told OMMA Global attendees on Tuesday. How niche can the wide world of content get? We're not talking 600 channels, according to Reider. "We are headed toward a world of 600,000 channels." But how big can these niche audiences be? Due to industry-wide audience fragmentation, niche online audiences are slowly approaching the audience size of top TV programming. (For example, Reider noted, Modern Family averaged 4 million viewers, …