Given that we can't see the bottom of our current economic crisis, the last thing we want to hear is talk of another bubble that has yet to burst. But John Gerzema and Ed Lebar have put together compelling research that argues we're in the midst of a "brand bubble" in their book "The Brand Bubble: The Looming Crisis in Brand Value and How to Avoid It." The basis of this bubble is that while key brand metrics (consumers' opinions of the value of a brand) have been steadily decreasing, corporations have continued to see an increase in the total …

"Personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Great Gatsby" I was reminded this quote midstream in my current read, "All Consuming Images," by Stuart Ewen, as he referenced it to lead a chapter. In this work, Ewen examines the politics of style in contemporary culture: representation and value; the nuanced relationship between art and commerce; style as business device. The facets and paths of his exploration are many, and I will be coming back to them, over time. I'm quite taken with where the read has taken me so far. This revisited quotation got …

I had a brief conversation this week with a close friend and colleague in the online advertising industry. Like everyone else, we shared sentiments in our quest to make some sense of the economic and political turbulence around us. Here's where I stand today....

I recently attended "Stream 08," an "un-conference" in Greece co-hosted by Sir Martin Sorrell of WPP and Yossi Vardi. Yossi, one of the world's best and most prominent technology investors and entrepreneurs, is famous for his un-conferences, which are basically open-source events where all of the participants are expected not only to listen and engage with speakers, but to be presenters as well. Since you can't just be a sponge at one of these events, but must contribute as well, I led a small session on recruiting and retaining talent in start-up companies.The group came up with some great insights …

The credit crisis is having a very obvious impact on the global economy, as anyone can see from a day-to-day observation of the stock market -- but there are some less obvious points of impact that may affect our business, as well. Simply put: Clients and agencies need to stop delaying payment on their bills. It is unprofessional and fast becoming an even greater problem than it used to be.

The economy is in trouble. Reaching people through marketing more efficiently will be more important than ever. Marketers, if your agency does not attempt innovative approaches to achieve a greater impact for your marketing efforts, fire them. Agencies, if your clients tie your hands and limit your ability to test new methods in search of higher returns for marketing efforts, quit. Both will put you (marketer or agency) in situations where waste happens because it's "safer" to spend money the way we know how. And waste is something you cannot afford in a slowing economy

On many personal and professional levels, we in the media business remember every step of the celebrated rise of the Internet in the early part of the century. Starting in 1993, I was in the Bay Area, where I would remain for 11 years, covering and then working within or running media and technology enterprises. These were formative years across the board. And, when it came to our media agency initiatives, they were getting evermore interesting, as interactive platforms advanced. There was an ethos of testing and learning with new media and emerging methods. This extended moment in time essentially …

The majority of my career has been dedicated to marketing small and midsized interactive businesses. This has been the result of my passion for working with promising, early-stage startups and seeing them through their first years of rapid growth. Yet, while I've been tactically focused on marketing smaller companies, I've always been precisely tuned to the marketing challenges of large companies. But my perspective changed over the past year after joining my latest startup. My strategic and intellectual focus now is centered squarely on the issues of smaller advertisers. What have I learned? "Small to medium" is actually huge.

Yesterday morning, I was the opening speaker at a conference in Mexico City for traditional ad agencies co-hosted by AMAP (the 4As of Mexico) and Mexico IAB. The conference title was "Don't Bite Your Tail," a reference that for agencies to continue to avoid digital today (as many in Mexico do) was tantamount to a dog biting its tail. My keynote focused on why embracing digital was so important today, especially given the emerging economic crisis. While my talk was developed with a Mexican ad agency audience in mind, I think that it makes sense to summarize it in my …

A few years back, I had the opportunity to focus my attention and efforts on the mobile category. I hesitated, because I felt mobile was a bit too far off from becoming a mature medium. The running joke for the last five to seven years has been that mobile was always "three years away from becoming a viable stand-alone medium." That was the case up until recently. I think mobile just had its growth spurt!