By Kendra Hatcher A couple of months ago, i overheard one of my clients say repeatedly, "i wasn't bored once!" following four hours of "a day in the life" presentations. That was one of the greatest compliments I have received during my three-year career in media. I beamed with pride as the associate planning directors presented consumer stories with succinct yet provocative headlines, eye-catching graphics, and little to no data. We gave a media presentation without reams of data ? blasphemy! Surely the media police will arrest me soon. Sitting through a bad old-school media presentation is much …

In a world that's oversaturated with media, being exposed to even more sensory stimulation might sound like overkill. Not to marketing guru Martin Lindstrom. Lindstrom is convinced that today's marketing, advertising, and branding strategies are inadequate. In his new book, Brand Sense: Build Powerful Brands through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight, and Sound (Free Press, 2005), Lindstrom discusses strategies to turn brands into multi-sensory experiences. Lindstrom cites examples of companies providing consumers with a unique sensory event while using their brands, from Crayola trademarking the scent of its crayons, to Kellogg's trademarking the crunch of its cornflakes. He says …

It was standing room only at a recent meeting in New York of the Carat Exchange, an informal network formed by Carat Digital's executive vice president, Mitch Oscar, to share learning on new media technologies. The media agency's occasional gathering of technologists, cable and satellite providers, researchers, agency executives, advertisers, and the odd reporter has quickly become a "must-attend" meeting, serving both as a venue for practical education and a catalyst for marketplace action. "The object is to transform trials into ubiquitous deployment," says David Verklin, Carat's outspoken ceo, who helped create the Exchange late last year. The Exchange …

When adidas opened its nearly 30,000-square-foot Sport Performance Store on a high-profile corner in lower Manhattan on May 7, the footwear and apparel giant had bigger plans than merely selling a few extra sneakers. Indeed, the opening-day event ? which featured sports luminaries ranging from Anna Kournikova to Leila Ali ? gave onlookers a clue of what Adidas envisioned: A one-stop hub for the company's New York presence. "It's definitely more than a store," acknowledges Todd Seidel, Adidas senior retail development manager. "We see it as a brand resource." Adidas isn't the first to explore and/or exploit the marketing …

When adidas opened its nearly 30,000-square-foot Sport Performance Store on a high-profile corner in lower Manhattan on May 7, the footwear and apparel giant had bigger plans than merely selling a few extra sneakers. Indeed, the opening-day event ? which featured sports luminaries ranging from Anna Kournikova to Leila Ali ? gave onlookers a clue of what Adidas envisioned: A one-stop hub for the company's New York presence. "It's definitely more than a store," acknowledges Todd Seidel, Adidas senior retail development manager. "We see it as a brand resource." Adidas isn't the first to explore and/or exploit the marketing …

So the phone rings late one Friday night a few weeks back. When I answer, I hear a friend babbling over a cacaphony of: "Models ... Suede ... DVDs ... models ... "Entourage"... models ... TV screens!" I'm confused, though the words I hear represent the perfect mix of this particular individual's interests. I feign a bad cell connection and hang up quickly. The next morning I learn that my friend had been watching a stunt perpetuated by Free Car Media, which were tapped by HBO to promote the DVD release of its comedy "Entourage." The firm outfitted a …

Catherine Zeta-Jones is the well-known face of t-mobile, but she's not the only celebrity padding her bank account with endorsement work. Last year, Alec Baldwin served as the voice of Disney World in a commercial, while Robert Redford spoke for United Airlines, and Julia Roberts for America Online. About 10 percent of commercials feature celebrity spokespeople, and 20 percent of ad dollars are spent on such campaigns, according to Jonathan Holiff, president of the Hollywood-Madison Group, an agency that recruits celebrity spokespeople. Stars have trekked to Europe and Japan to pitch products in the past, but in recent …

Just when we started to groove on shuffling Jay-Z tracks on an iPod and moving "West Wing" episodes stored on a digital video recorder to the home pc network, big media began to break up our copying party with second-generation cd/dvd copy protection schemes. Never mind all that profligate online file swapping, Sony bmg says "schoolyard piracy," ripping and copying music to writable cds, is responsible for two-thirds of all illegal music. Gee, and we thought people were buying all those 500-disc cd-readable (cd-r) towers at Best Buy just to back up gigabytes of Excel spreadsheets. Sony expects to …

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How a culture of exaggerated claims, corporate misdeeds, and political intrigue has bred a generation of cynics. And what marketers can do to win consumers back.