I was thinking about a study I was asked to participate in recently. First of all, it is rare that I can actually participate at all. I'm sure like you, we are considered to be biased by the careers we keep. We also spend lots of money to get a peek in the tent of consumer insight in regard to the brand we represent.

When I was just an itty-bitty columnist, I used to hear my parents complain bitterly about commercials on TV during "The Brady Bunch" and other programs I was permitted to watch. Over the years, this complaining sort of became like a dull roar, as even cable stations seemed determined to pack as much monetization into each program segment, and my clan watched less and less TV.

We've super-sized a generation by feeding them at FFHR's (Fast Food Hamburger Restaurants). We've told them that what they are eating is called a hamburger. So should we be surprised if they do not recognize ground sirloin on a sourdough bun as the same food-stuff? Or if they do recognize the genus (hamburger), should we be surprised that their tastes have evolved (or devolved) to a point where they will show a marked preference for MickyD's over a classic "21 Burger?"

We've all seen product placement and product integration into entertainment. It dates back to the Texaco Star Theatre, and was updated by "Castaway" (with Tom Hanks) and "American Idol" (which apparently stars Coca-Cola and some kids who can sing). In today's culture, we expect products to be center stage almost as much as the stars themselves, but is this working--and we should we care that brands are hijacking our entertainment in this way?

On my train ride home, I often use the browser on my Handspring Treo to help me make plans for when I arrive at home. I check movie start times, look for hours and locations of retail stores, and use online reservation systems for restaurants and all sorts of other things. The Blazer browser that comes with the Treo is not the most fully functional browser in the world, but it usually gets the job done.

The marketing intelligentsia has been affixing the long tail descriptor to Blogs and Search Engine Marketing for so long that there's been less attention paid to what's really been driving growth of interactive for the past year - the short twitch.

Remember Razzles? Back when I was a kid (when the Earth was cooling), they had a wonderful advertising campaign that asked the question: "...is it a gum or a candy?" Razzles were truly unusual. They were a bizarre cross between a sucking candy and chewing gum. Nobody knew how to describe them, so the advertising agency decided to forego classical benefit-oriented advertising concepts and focus on the confusing feature set. The campaign turned the product's weakness into its strength (very Sun Tzu). The results were excellent, because the product was excellent. The ad promoted sampling and once sampled, the product …

It's hard to determine which is getting more press right now, "Star Wars Episode III" or the Xbox 360. Both are resolving many questions that have resided in our minds over the past few years, and both signal a distinctly different, technologically advanced future. "Star Wars" resolves all the questions about how Anakin becomes Darth Vader. The Xbox 360 resolves all the questions about whether or not Microsoft will improve its foray into the gaming world, as well as how Microsoft is going to push to own the virtual world that will reside in our homes. Oh, and both …

Maybe you've had an experience like this... Your client gets a well-written e-mail through the customer support address listed on their Web site. The writer is usually a loyal customer, as evidenced by the first two paragraphs of their e-mail, which describes how they've been buying your client's product or service for years and have always been satisfied. And this loyal customer is writing your client to try to understand why they're advertising on a porn site.

Its tag line is rediscover the Web. Just think about that for a moment. We are all so used to going online. It is part of our daily lives. We have our favorite sites bookmarked, we subscribe to music download sites, e-mail groups, instant messenger clients, etc. We search or look up anything and everything from restaurant reviews to movie listings to booking airline tickets and checking local weather reports.