These days, every company is on the brink of a crisis. It could come in the form of a manufacturing mistake, security breach, contaminated food item, rogue employee or - as we've seen in the news more frequently in recent months - a C-level misdeed.

Every start to the year inspires newness and a point of reflection. Whether personally or in business, we pause to look back and plan forward. This is the time we at least attempt to reset our efforts. Learning from the good and bad of the previous year, with the hope of designing a better roadmap for achieving our goals. While we do not have a crystal ball to see the future, we can certainly take steps to be better prepared for what is ahead in marketing for 2018. Here are some trends we think you should not ignore.

It has now been 10 (!) years since the financial crisis that triggered the Great Recession. And while some economic indicators (such as median income and auto sales) have finally surpassed pre-recession levels, some qualitative indicators suggest many consumers are still feeling the emotional hangover. Case in point: luxury's "public persona."

There's nothing new about direct-to-consumer performance marketing. It has been around since the early days of the web and decades before that in various media, including direct mail, print and TV.

Sixty-four percent of the U.S. population are gamers, according to Nielsen's 2017 "Games 360 U.S" report. Take a second to let that number sink in. Here is another fancy number: according to SuperData's 2016 research, eSports (multiplayer online games played competitively for spectators) generated almost $1 billion in 2016.

What makes a compelling advertisement in such a crowded space? I went directly to the audience to nail down what exactly the viewers liked, loved, and hated.

We invited folks from around our organization to give thoughts on their favorite "music moments" of the Super Bowl, and have rounded up a compilation.

A recent study by Viacom Velocity shows that 33% of people don't believe there is such thing as the truth, and 51% sometimes don't believe what mainstream culture considers "fact."

Having surpassed the Baby Boomers as the largest age cohort, Millennials are now the generation marketers have been investing heavily in understanding and targeting. But there are also lessons to be learned in terms of what not to do in ads targeted to Millennials: Here are four ads from the past five Super Bowls that were dismal failures with Millennials.

Faulty data can doom even the smartest advertising campaign.