Setting up shop in a new neighborhood can be a challenge - especially when the laws of physics don't apply. The Golden Rules of Virtual World Marketing.

As chairman of the WPP Group, Martin Sorrell is arguably the biggest and most powerful player on Madison Avenue. With ad agencies such as JWT, Ogilvy & Mather, and Y&R, and media shops like MindShare, Mediaedge:cia, and MediaCom, Sorrell's organization has emerged as the No. 1 buyer of media in the world, purchasing more than $40 billion worth of advertising time and space for its clients in virtually every corner of the planet. But recently, Sorrell took a meeting that left him feeling quite small. It was during a WPP strategic planning session at which Sorrell, a British knight, was …

Pop! Next to Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon escorts, I can't imagine that sound striking more fear in anyone than this magazine's readers. The last time we heard it - some seven years ago - it was nearly deafening. It was also death-ening.

The $131 billion U.S. hotel industry recently received a wake-up call.

Humans are innately social beings. Since the beginning of time, it has been in our DNA to seek connections with others, always looking for more ways to communicate. It began with the formation of spoken languages tens of thousands of years ago. Then, languages became written, from markings on cave walls to alphabetical systems. To add another dimension, a portable medium was invented: papyrus. Soon people began to communicate over long distances, building infrastructure for a postal system. The state of economics and relationships between countries came to depend on the efficiency of these systems.

All of a sudden, it seems like integrated marketing communications planning (IMC) is hot again. Particularly in consumer packaged goods (CPG), we are seeing clients launch new initiatives to better coordinate tactics and messages in their marketing programs.

Almost 40 years ago, the media community started negotiating television deals on gross ratings points for persons instead of households. Ten years ago, some intrepid buyers started to include the importance of unduplicated rating points, commonly called reach, in their negotiations. More recently, a few buyers began to target consumer ratings instead of demographic ratings.

The best advertising tells a story we want to share with others. Or, to put it another way, great ads spark conversation. The true power of terrific ads lies less in the telling and more in the retelling. We converse by telling stories that connect us to others and let others appreciate our feelings, intentions, and dreams.

Dear Santa: I've been an extremely good boy this year. I ate all my vegetables, played nice with my sister, and actually bought a CD with money. (Well, my grandfather bought me the CD, but I think he paid with actual money, and all my friends are really enjoying one or two of the songs from it.) I've done all my homework on time, but haven't been to the library all year. Google is my library now, and man - does Wikipedia make writing my essays easy! And I'm an author, too; I got to update the definition of Panic! …

In the U.K., "flog" is commonly used as a synonym for "sell." As in, "I need to flog this old carpet." Although, to be more accurate, its use connotes dishonest selling - more like, "I need to flog the carpet I just stole." Which makes it a uniquely appropriate, if ironic, word for the practice of fake blogging. It's appropriate because fake blogging, a.k.a. flogging, is clearly a dishonest and shady activity. But it's ironic because I can't believe that anyone really believes they could sell anything to anyone by creating a flog.