Talking with one of my board members yesterday, he did the kind of thing that board members do. Threw me a one liner that represents a hard question. (That’s one of the functions of board members). He asked me what business we thought we were in. Are we in the Internet business or the business of creating synergy between the Internet and other media/marketing efforts. My first answer was yes, we are in both of those businesses. But of course it is not as easy as that.

The difference between me and Jim Meskauskas isn’t so much that he likes pop-ups and I don’t. It’s rather that he’s not quite so hypocritical. While denouncing pop-ups at every opportunity, I do recommend companies buy them when they prove useful. This may appear to be speaking out of two sides of my mouth, but I think this is merely pragmatic.

I guess the moratorium on press about the pop-up is over. A recently released Gartner G2 study basically concluded that pop-ups are “really annoying.” Yup. That’s right. Most consumers don’t seem to like them. Who’d a thunk it? But like direct mail, it keeps on coming because -- lo and behold! – it must work.

Last week I stated some of my findings and opinions on the use of frequency in online media planning. As you may have noticed, frequency is a variable that can be adjusted depending on the audience and the goals of the campaign as well as a number of additional elements, but what about Reach? How much of the audience is necessary to be exposed within a campaign?

I’m traveling a lot more than I used to. New business pitches, conferences, meetings, after-work drinks with clients, lunches with new business partners – this new gig is keeping me on the go. Such is the case with most of the people on our staff here at the agency. They don’t spend very long sitting at their desks before they’re needed elsewhere. We’ve addressed this challenge by making use of Wi-Fi.

This week I received three different email messages from people seeking my help in anti-war marketing causes. It warmed my heart. Even though I’m personally quite enthusiastic about letting the dogs of war slip upon regimes that double-deal the U.S. in truce agreements, I am heartened by the increasing use of interactive media to develop support for political causes.

The second any client receives a post-buy report from their first online advertising campaign, they all instantly turn into direct response marketers. But, heaven forbid you should talk in terms of direct response marketing, or they'll have you fired and put on the rack!

As the push for incorporating traditional metrics such as reach and frequency into the planning process continues to gain steam, I once again find myself asking the old question of what is an effective frequency for creating a reaction in online advertising?

How about being a spammer, but not knowing it? If you use email lists as an advertising tool, it’s easy to become a spammer and not even know it. Advertisers may not know it, but there are several middlemen between their ad agency or in-house email capability and the origination point of a given email list.

My family went to Thailand for Christmas. The cultural differences that we encountered reminded me once again that, no matter where you are, if you operate solely based on your own assumptions, you could be very wrong.