Employing simple yet bold creative strategies, RPA Interactive had a standout year in 2006, gaining the most notice for ensuring that the Honda "Element and Friends" campaign that began in 2005 continued to have legs - crab legs, that is.

The accolade "game-changer" was applied liberally in 2006, but in the case of Interpublic Group's R/GA's Flash-powered NikeStore site, no other term suffices.

Search is the biggest and fastest-growing sector in online advertising, and there's no shortage of competitors in the business.

Asked about the wildly creative online placements devised by his Universal McCann in 2006, David Cohen, executive vice president/U.S. director of digital communications, seems to shrug.

Over the course of a conversation with Digitas' top executives, they tossed around many familiar industry catchphrases.

A spate of articles highlighting various industries' entry into online branding begs the question, "What took so long?"

Word of mouth as a marketing tool has moved well beyond buzz status and now ranks among the valuable strategies discussed at the marketing planning table, according to "The More, the Better: Creating Successful Word of Mouth Campaigns," a report by WOM research and consulting firm Keller Fay Group and BzzAgent, a WOM promotional firm.

Considering the challenges banner ads and rich media ads face in catching the viewer's attention and getting a click-through, search advertising has made itself the most powerful killer app to come along since e-mail.

The mood going into 2006 could best be described as cautious optimism.

It happens at every technology conference. Some Web 2.0 smarty-pants touts what he considers the latest and greatest technology by boasting, "We made it so easy my mom can use it."