Brand-told stories work harder for a brand when they appear on neutral platforms (YouTube, for example) or sites owned by the advertiser.

Are you interested in how your brand will fare this holiday season? Online marketing agency Wpromote is out with its 2015 Holiday Revenue Calculator. It's designed to give you a peek at what you can expect for revenue during the holiday season. To get started with the calculator, you are asked to enter your brand's URL and your revenues from Q4 of 2014. You are then asked to rate your marketing activities on a sliding scale from not executed to well executed. Metrics to be graded are Adwords campaigns, dedicated emails, mobile optimization and targeting, content …

Speaking at H+K Strategies D2 Conference in London, Sir Martin Sorrell made it known he is not happy with what he sees as a prevailing attitude within the industry that creativity resides solely within the walls of creative agencies.

Acknowledging that upwards of half -- depending upon whom you ask -- or more online ads are consumed by bots rather than living, breathing human beings, the Outdoor Advertising Association has launched an campaign touting the fact that billboards, unlike current day online ads, are seen by actual human beings.

Hey -- with the supposed demise of ad agencies and the rampant transformation they are going through to stay alive, why not an ad agency as record label? Wait, what? I thought record labels were tanking too. Anyway. The agency is partnering in the new record label that will come under the Polydor division of Universal. Of the move, Havas BETC Co-Founder Remi Babinet said: "A modern ad agency should be able to offer a lot more than just consulting and traditional campaigns; it should be a media, a producer and an audience generator in itself. This will …

Are you in withdrawal over the end of "Mad Men?" Do you long for your weekly dose of advertising-infused entertainment?

Geoffrey Roche, founder of Lowe Roche, has penned a lengthy discussion piece on the closing of Lowe Roche following its acquisition by IPG.

On Monday from 9AM to 5PM outside The Times Center during Advertising Week, MEC will conduct interviews which will result in the immediate hiring of 10 entry-level employees as part of the agency's MEC Live Hire event.  Each candidate will go through four interviews with four different people from the agency who will center their respective interview questions on one of four areas; communication, collaboration, strategic thinking and initiative and accountability.  Of the endeavor, MEC Chief Talent Officer Marie-Claire Barker said, "We can do things quickly if we're aligned strategically on the type of talent we're trying to …

Michelle Sassa, a copy writer who has worked for Berlin Cameron United, McCann-Erickson and several other agencies, is about to publish a new book called Copygirl.

Unlike iProspect President Ben Wood, who has been to both Cannes and Dmexpo, I went to neither this year.