There were plenty of shimmering highlights but no dumb blonde jokes at Kathleen Flynn-Hui's recent book signing at the Barnes & Noble in Manhattan's Chelsea. A star colorist -- and colorist to the stars -- at Salon AKS, Flynn-Hui is also the author of Beyond the Blonde, a fictionalized account of her experiences in the New York beauty industry. At the signing, Flynn-Hui did joke that she couldn't take a book tour because her clients can't live without her. Instead, her publisher, Warner Books, blanketed luxury salons across the country with free copies of her book to …

This fall readers of ELLEgirl magazine fulfilled a marketer's fantasy: They not only thumbed through the magazine's ads, they took pictures of them. Readers who took a camera-phone shot of an August L'Oreal spread, for instance, could e-mail it to the magazine's mobile marketing partner, Mobot, and find out if they were an instant winner.

We picked the wrong name for this column. We wanted it to represent something fast and forward-thinking, but as it turns out the term "fast-forward" is an anachronism, a throwback to the world of analog media. The reality is that in a digital world, there is no fast-forwarding. "It's a fake," advanced media guru Shelly Palmer told me recently, explaining that when digital video recorder and video-on-demand providers program a fast-forward feature for their subscribers, it's simply because that's the way analog-bred consumers think. But it's not how digital media actually works. In the old days of …

The avalanche of emerging technologies and platforms, the rise of communications planning, and the flight to nontraditional media may signal different things for creatives and media strategists. Fundamentally, though, if both are going to thrive, they'll need to understand how the new dynamics are changing the marketing game. MEDIA magazine contributor Ann Cooper reports.

The Little Guys: Wexley School for Girls Seattle-based Wexley School for Girls was set up in 2003 as an alternative to larger shops, with a focus on short films and on offering clients something different. "We're a communications agency," says Ian Cohen, who started the agency with Cal McAllister, both formerly of Wieden + Kennedy and Publicis. "We launched to try and reach our target audience better. We're the little guys. Clients call us in to shake things up, which is really flattering. We're only eight people, and we're pretty concept-based, so it's really tight and …

Creative agencies are jumping into the media game with unique plans and programs that make brands synonymous with popular culture. Could creatives become a threat to media agencies? Who comes out on top in the new media game? What you need to know about the new creativity. MEDIA magazine contributor Ann Cooper reports.

Media has become the fabric of our lives. Once upon a time, our family and other social relations were the fabric of our lives, or at least that's the way the story goes. But in our postmodern era, nothing is real until it's on one of the major networks, cable news, the Internet, or another media feed. Proximity is nothing; connectivity is everything. We all know this to be true. Just look at that group of friends walking down the street "together": each one is on a cell phone with someone else. Or look at that individual walking alone, tethered …

Advertising. the very word summons up a different time, in the second half of the last century, when things were much simpler. The Western economies, led by America, built a new world on the promise of plenty. Back then, things were easier for marketers. People in the postwar world were enthralled with a new technology: television. Soon there was a glowing orb in every living room, delivering the promise of a better world, a better life -- or at least a life full of wonderful new products. Advertising was at the heart of this phenomenon. Television delivered mass …

If advertising is dead, we'll just have to resurrect it, because consumers certainly don't want to live without it. But when we breathe new life into it, let's not revive the Frankenstein monster of today that the villagers of the global marketplace are pretty much beating to death right now. Yankelovich data is unequivocal -- consumers do not want an end to advertising; they want better advertising. Advertising has become anathema because marketers have turned it into something that is lifestyle- threatening rather than lifestyle-enhancing. The imperative facing marketers is to reignite the spark that restores life and spirit …