I want a word with whoever first threw around the "last mile" bit about creative in the display-ad ecosystem. It's fair enough, I suppose, to leave the creative as the "last mile" these days. If you look at the degree of innovation that's occurred in how display ads are bought, targeted and trafficked in the last two years alone, there's a lot to be proud of. We can buy the right audiences using sophisticated algorithms instead of inefficient spreadsheets. We can do amazing things like bid differently for different audiences based on their value to us - in real time …

In a tech-crazed, gizmo-loaded world, it's not particularly easy to peddle plastic building blocks to kids. Unless, of course, you are LEGO. If anything, our economic downturn has helped the Denmark-based toymaker, which saw its sales stack up nicely in 2009. In the United States, LEGO Systems' consumer sales grew 31 percent over 2008, the fifth straight year of growth in the United States for the company.

University of Florida's former star quarterback Tim Tebow and his evangelical missionary parents knew a golden opportunity when they saw one. Focus on the Family, a Christian activist group, came calling in late 2009 with an offer to put Tebow, known for his clean-cut image and faith-based charity work, in a Super Bowl ad designed to send viewers to the Focus on the Family Web site. The Tebow family saw that such an ad -- which they could never afford on their own -- could also indirectly send people to a Tim Tebow site that could collect donations and volunteers …

America's Mad Men might be going mobile - but not from behind the wheel of their cars. Mobile advertising on portable devices and smartphones - either with sponsored content, direct advertisement or via installed apps - is looking like the sole survivor in today's dead-man-walking ad market: Mobile billings are expected to touch $4.1 billion this year, up 24 percent from last, according to Juniper Research, the UK-based telecom and mobile analyst firm, with total turnover expected to hit $12 billion by 2015.

Apple likes control. While nearly universally agreed upon, this is an understatement. Like saying Mussolini had a thing for trains. Its approach is seemingly in direct opposition to Google's open one, as the two battle over the mobile Web.

It's somewhat ironic that Apple's rise can be said to be traced to that iconic Super Bowl ad it ran in 1984 introducing the Macintosh computer to the world. It's a bleak landscape of all grey that the runner in orange shorts hurtles through, past bleak grey people, being chased by armored guards.

Direct-response advertising is a straightforward proposition. If a placement does not produce sales, cut it and move the money elsewhere. It is very black and white. Meanwhile, brand advertising is filled with shades of gray. The majority of brand advertisers don't directly sell products on Web sites. They cannot directly monetize their Web traffic. CPGs struggle with Web advertising exactly because it is so measurable. Without a specific goal, brand managers thrash about for direction. They ask, What do you measure when there is nothing to measure?

Right out of college in 2005, Bridget Mackinson landed a gig at search-driven social marketing agency Reprise Media. By 2007, she had earned such a solid reputation that Reprise asked her to help set up new offices in San Francisco. Out west, she quickly rose to the position of Media Director, where she oversees multiple campaigns and a large portion of the multimillion-dollar Microsoft business. Since Mackinson was assigned to Microsoft's search business two years ago, its search marketing performance has improved "dramatically," according to Mark Grote, Senior Search Advertising Manager at Microsoft. Furthermore, Grote calls Mackinson "the finest [campaign …

Temperatures flared toward the end of the first day of OMMA Global San Francisco in March. Sure, it had been a long day. People were cranky. Pay wall discussions tend to bring out the animal in panelists. And 24/7 Real Media's chairman and founder David Moore seemed to think he was ringside at Wrestlemania.

Take five parts narcissistic would-be lifecasters, one part American Idol striving, two parts technology. Shake well. Serve with a twist.