I have written in the past that the CMO of today is really the chief advertising officer, because many of the traditional CMO duties have been taken over by chief technology officers, chief growth officers, chief innovation officers, chief revenue officers and other members in the C-suite. I noted that of the four traditional Ps, only the poorly named P for "promotion" was still part of the CMO's responsibilities. I posited that, as a result, the CEO of today is truly the CMO, as the CEO alone has end responsibility for all four Ps (to refresh your memories, or teach …

TV ads are about to undergo a huge shift in how they are bought and sold. This change isn't just about the big announcements of late about audience-based TV ads -- the OpenAP consortia from Fox, Turner and Viacom, as well as NBCU's announcement that it would reserve $1 billion of its inventory this year for audience-based sales. Nope, something even more fundamental is happening in media, and it's going to have its biggest impact on TV. The future of TV will be about performance.

Have you been reading the trade press lately? Have you noticed some new names and faces being discussed? I have, and I find it interesting to finally see some diversity in the companies getting talked about - which also signals the continued maturity of the digital and data-driven marketing space.

Sir Martin Sorrell must feel like he's trying to hold water in his bare hands. First, the normally bullish European investment bank Exane BNP Paribas double whammied Sorrell's WPP last week with a double downgrade -- from "outperform" to "underperform" -- and dropped its target price for the stock by a whopping 27%.

Until you find yourself the victim of a social media attack, the whole thing seems kind of silly. Words are just words, right? You can ignore name-calling and nasty comments -- and just rise above it. Well, this is a story about the day that all changed for me.

Last year, I wrote an article called "The real reason this elephant chart is terrifying." In it, I looked at the work of Christoph Lakner and Branko Milanovic, who charted change in real income, for every percentile of global population, across a 20-year period from 1988 to 2008. While lots of folks had their incomes go up over the period, there's a big dip in the chart between the 75th and 90th percentiles. Those folks -- poor people in rich countries -- are seeing their incomes stagnate or decline. The scary bit, I explained, is that the price-performance of technology …

In a recent column, Barbara Lippert commented that Hulu advertisers should be careful about advertising adjacencies in "The Handmaid's Tale." That's a delicate way to couch a phenomenon more akin to bludgeoning. Not naming names, the variety of big companies advertising on the show was impressive. It was Super Bowl-like, with beautifully produced spots in every case. Here's some of what happens in the first couple of episodes: The government murders a man without a trial. Pregnant women are forced to carry out a brutal execution, on-camera. A woman has her eye pulled out of her head for being rude …

Are you tired of talking about data? Then let's try talking about use cases - what data makes possible. Data is not the end result - it is simply a means to an end. Data is also a highly overwhelming concept because it's intangible. So let's make it tangible. Consider this your summer primer on what data can do for you.

It's 5 a.m. outside Pier 94, on New York's West Side. The cavernous building is still quiet. It will be hours before the doors open. But that hasn't stopped more than 300 people from lining up before sunrise, waiting to get their color-coded wristband and the shot to pitch their entrepreneurial hearts. The goal: a coveted spot on the hit TV show "Shark Tank."