I grew up in an era known for its sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, yet I am still amazed how sensitive some people of my generation are about discussing some fundamental aspects of our society, especially sex, religion and politics. It's okay to allude to these subjects, but to openly share your point of view on them is, well, often taboo. It's something I've learned as a writer and editor over the years. Print something direct about one of those subjects and you're asking for trouble, because it's bound to offend someone, somewhere, sometime, and seemingly for the most …

In 2006, the federal government declared that the Internet was 99 percent porn-free, based on a study by Professor Philip Stark of University of California, Berkeley. Yet, other studies have put pornographic Web visits as high as 40 percent of all online activity.

If you think you are rational and objective, don't read this column. Instead, I'd like you to please turn to your computer and search for "IAT" - Implicit Association Test. If you do this your search results should include a link for a demo test from Harvard. Do it. Take one.

Tonight, as we await election results from across the country, let's take a look back at the watershed media moments of the 2016 presidential race. This was the year that technical innovation and marketing creativity forever reshaped the contest for the White House.

I spent the early part of my career in PR agencies. I found that many PR people believe in press for press' sake. Any coverage is good coverage. But if a tree falls in the woods, and it's turned into paper, and on the paper is printed a story that isn't relevant to the reader, did the tree or the story make a sound? It's likely that they hardly rattled a leaf.

A brand can identify a movement. A brand can spark a movement. It can curate and crystallize a movement. It can even speed up a movement's rise toward dominance.

The American Telegram & Telegraph company might be shaking off the last of its 1880s dust; it recently teamed with a band from the double-oughts that borrows some of its sound from the 1980s and named itself for the decade after: AT&T and BBDO New York enlisted Scottish indie band 1990s for the "Beat City" spot - a computer-generated animation set to music to launch the new '80s-cum-retro-futuristic Sony Ericsson Walkman phone. Jackie McKeown, lead singer and guitarist, had a few comments on being the brand's new house band.

"Can you give me a referral?" Asked, searched and answered millions of times a day, this simple question slips past our multimillion-dollar marketing budgets, customer personas, targeted media plans, clever virals and message platforms to reach for human truth: "I trust your opinion. What do you think?"

One of the first brands of the commercial internet to bring online advertising out of the nerdery and into the mainstream was Yahoo. It was one of the first online destinations to accept advertising, and for a time, was the most recognizable brand exclusively on the Web. When it went public on April 12, 1996 (eight months after Netscape, the first dot-com to do so), Yahoo raised $33.8 million dollars by selling 2.6 million shares at $13 each.

What a difference a decade makes. This thought struck me recently while I was dining with some colleagues from the interactive advertising ranks. They were talking (okay, complaining) about clients and agency partners who spend too much time and money trying to perfect their ads - even relatively simple banners - on the front end rather than just putting them out on the Web and seeing what works best. Their experiences sounded surprisingly similar to those of my colleagues in more traditional ad arenas.