In an unexpected display of breathtaking courage, Johnson & Johnson has launched an advertising campaign heroically endorsing love -- hoping to rekindle our love affair with a decreasingly lovable brand. In the past three years, the company has been fined more than $1 billion, settled multiple regulatory actions and has faced huge lawsuits for a staggering series of failures.

There are many explanations for this world of blunder. One is the idiotic value placed on being first with a shard of previously unreported information, no matter how dubious. Another is physics; in the vacuum of understanding that afflicts live coverage after breaking news, anything that fills the gaping void looks irresistible. The final reason is the most counterintuitive: the news channels have little capacity for actual journalism.

A la carte digitally delivered TV is a non-starter. Except that it's now here. Cord-cutters can now have access to almost everything cable offers at much lower cost.

You can't please everybody, nor should you try. But you can't ignore everybody, either. You do not exist without them. And is there any stakeholder relationship more elemental than a theater and its audience?

In honor of the new baseball season, here is another edition of Wild Pitches, the semiannual feature featuring publicists and other corporate communicators who probably have flesh and blood, but nonetheless behave like mindless bots clogging the inboxes of journalists the world over.

The occasion was the launch of 'Can't Buy Me Like,' in which Doug Levy and I outline sweeping changes in commerce that will yield a more open, more humane, more purposeful business world and society at large. The gist is this: four forces are converged to render obsolete the opaque, high-handed practices of commerce we've grown grudgingly accustomed to.

Purpose is not a campaign or a gimmick or PR window dressing. It is not positioning. It does not aim to be differentiating. Purposefulness is an ethic. A worldview. A mentality. And it is not merely the right way for brands -- and all institutions -- to operate in a digitally connected world. It is the only way.

No matter how righteous your argument -- or no matter how efficacious your brand -- success in the Relationship Era does not accrue to those who broadcast, nor even to those who assiduously narrowcast, a unilateral message. It belongs to those who share.

I feel obliged to call the world's attention to some news out of 'Forbes' magazine: It's doing well. Very well. That's remarkable for two reasons. The magazine industry in general is circling the drain -- and I was sure 'Forbes' would fail. ' Forbes' magazine itself -- that thing they print on paper -- seems to be seeing growth both in ad pages and newsstand sales. That's a fact that rocks my world, as miracles are wont to do.

You're young, you're old, you're powerful beyond measure, and you have a lot of cash -- and the fuel of that power is not magic or mysticism but knowledge: the things you see, the things you feel, the things you know to be true.