It's as ironic as it is overdue that the Wall Street Journal has been saying good things about our industry of late. The Journal, of course, has as its mandate not so much reporting on news but reporting on how news effects markets. So, it has seemed, at least to this observer, that its writers have never really recovered from the spring of 2000. Why else to wait until this week to finally report on a credibility wave that has been rising for about a year?

Breathe. Find a quiet space, and still place. Are your chakras aligned? Were any of you reading through your third eye this week? Well, if you were you might have seen a page-one article in the Wall Street Journal this week (Wednesday, February 25, 2004) with the headline "After Wave of Disappointments, The Web Lures Back Advertisers."

The evolution of online creative is something that is becoming more and more intriguing to me. Over the last couple of years, much of the better creative utilized Flash animation and illustrated characters to convey a message to the consumer. As increased usage of video is approaching, I am now seeing that many of the standard Flash units are utilizing motion photography or real photographs to make a connection with the consumer.

It seems to me that we don't really discuss the bad brands. Well, maybe we do behind closed doors. Is it taboo in our industry? If a brand is troubled and failing to the point of a faint pulse, why not kill it? I'm sure some of you just cringed that I put it so bluntly. Seriously though, why not?

How many times has this happened to you? You send an RFP, negotiate packages with websites and spend hours or days constructing a plan presentation, with rationale, screenshots and numbers for the website packages you're recommending. You present the plan to the client and get them all excited about the recommendation. The client goes back to the powers that be in order to obtain budget approval. While the client is securing approval, websites start to call to let you know that proposed inventory is no longer available.

Pursuant to my screed on Comcast's folly last week, in undertaking to gobble up Disney, I began to examine what was going on with Roy Disney and his effort to block the sale of his Uncle Walt's empire.

The IAB on Monday (Feb. 16) announced that it had compliance on recommended guidelines for rich media advertising units from more than 30 of the seven jillion web sites that offer advertising. Those who are "compliant" are the usual suspects. Among them: About.com, Advertising.com, America Online, Cartoon Network, CBS MarketWatch, MSN, USAToday, Weather, and Yahoo!

Many of you have heard me discuss the balance between science and art that affects our chosen profession, but at the end of the day I truly believe there are mathematical equations that can explain everything. This is especially true in the world of advertising, but recently I have been working on a mathematical explanation to predict how a campaign allocation should detail the types of ad sizes that are considered within a plan.

While we all know that the shortest and simplest path to purchase represents a tactic that moves product, we should also know by now that all consumers aren't necessarily ready to buy when they interact with one of our online ads. This is where parallel information structures can help.

Yes, it's true, online ad revenues hit a whopping $2.2 billion USD last quarter. This is the highest since both began to track spending back in '96. Oh yea, and the "bubble" was a result of numbers totaling $2.1 billion USD in Q4 of 2000. However, we are still behind total ad spending of 2000 by 11%.