• Marketing's 2017 Shiny Object Obsessions? Bah, Humbug!
    It's literally almost the end of the year. A heavy burden rests upon me as I stand between you and MediaPost 2018. I feel I must write words of wisdom, deliver sage advice for the new year, or look back on things of importance from 2017. Instead, I will write about things more, well, stupid. Or at least stupid in my book. Specifically, I want to talk about all over-hyped shiny objects that were so 2017.
  • Who Will Own The 'Marketing Cloud' Of The Future?
    Who will own the future of the trillion dollars or so spent on marketing every year? Many people believe this arena will be dominated by whoever controls the most and best consumer data, combined with the most and best opportunities to connect that data with massively scaled touchpoints These companies will have lots of consumer data and lots of chances to capture value from that data in the targeting, measurement and optimization of all forms of commercial communication, from email, digital banners, digital video and TV ads to e-commerce personalization, snail mail and telemarketing.
  • Dear Ad Techs: You Don't Speak The Language Of Marketers
    n 2017, I made a big shift. I moved out of the ad and marketing tech space and became a more traditional mainstream tech marketer. In doing so, I realized the adtech and martech industries are in a bit of a pickle - a fact that only becomes crystal-clear when you remove yourself from the day-to-day of it all.
  • Why Reality Is In Deep Trouble
    When it comes to a transmitted representation of reality, we accept video as the gold standard. Of all our five senses, we trust sight the most to differentiate what's real from what's fake. Photos used to be accepted as incontrovertible proof of reality, until Photoshop messed that up. Now, it's video's turn. Technology has handed us the tools that enable us to manufacture any reality we wish and distribute it in the form of video. And because it's in that form, most everyone will believe it to be true.
  • Maybe Unicorns Aren't So Great After All
    Once again, Uber has been knocked back. Earlier this week, the Court of Justice of the European Union issued a ruling that the rideshare giant was in fact a "transport service" and not a mere "technology platform." The distinction is significant: a transport service is required to maintain minimum standards and comply with a level of regulation that a technology platform is not. Seen in context, this event is indicative of a wider movement toward finally, finally setting some boundaries on the actions and impact of technology supercorporations.
  • What I'm Excited About For 2018 -- And What Worries Me
    As 2017 comes to a close, I've been thinking a lot about the future and what next year might have in store. Net, net, I'm very optimistic.
  • Inside the New 'Ethics Economy'
    I read a pretty fair amount, and these days there's a lot to read. I just read an article describing the "ethics economy," a term that sums up exactly what's going on in the U.S. today. Politicians, entertainers and corporate executives are finally being held to task for irresponsible and offensive actions they've taken over the course of many, many years. This is giving birth to the ethics economy, which feels like a tipping point.
  • Which Me Am I -- And On Which Network?
    I have different social spheres in my life. I have the remnants of my past professional life as an online marketer. I have my passion as a cyclist. I have a new emerging sphere as a fledgling tourism operator. I have my family. I could go on. I can think of only a handful of people who comfortably lie within two or more of my spheres. But with social sign-ins, those spheres are suddenly mashed together.
  • Social Commerce Takes Hold
    Social media gets lots of press, but social commerce has been pretty much ignored. Why is that -- and why does it matter in the world that connected people to products?
  • Agency Pitches: A Review
    Over the last few weeks, as I watched various agency presentations, it was amazing to see pdf pages from marketers' briefs come to life in ideas, proposals, and demonstrations of imaginative thinking. Although the briefings for each pitch were of course wildly different from each other, certain themes were consistent across all sessions. I thought it would be interesting to share these themes. Call it a year-end trends summary. Call it random thoughts from a cranky marketer. Here goes:
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