There are tons of articles written about the transformation of marketing due to data-driven platforms, customer-driven solutions and more. Many of these columns speak to challenges facing marketers such as a cluttered marketplace of solutions and infrastructure, but they all overlook one very important issue: without executive-level buy-in, none of these programs can succeed.

The phrase, "You'll never believe what happens next," may never appear in your Facebook News Feed again. The click-bait era is officially over.

It is the end of 2020, time to look back on the year's main developments as well as the decade we now leave behind. Let's start with ASVD (advertising-supported video distribution) -- or as we used to know it, television.

Without trying to be insulting, I'm guessing you don't follow the politics of New Zealand all that closely. Yet it's worth paying attention to the currently unfolding New Zealand election. Beyond the center-right National Party and the center-left Labour Party, beyond the Greens and the Conservatives, a new party is emerging -- the Internet Party -- and it may herald a fundamental shift in politics as we know it.

I have a very simple proposal: Let's rate the impression.

The most effective, and valuable CMOs of the future will also be responsible for revenue, including direct sales and channel sales. I challenge any CMO in the industry to defy that prediction.

Lately I've been describing myself as the Robin Hood of marketing. If I look back at my four books, they all have a common theme of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Or, in marketing speak: budget optimization (sounds less daring when you put it that way).

Last week, Nancy Hill, of the 4A's, wrote an op-ed on Wall Street Journal's CMO Today blog explaining why agencies are not in a position to attract and afford the kind of talent Wall Street and Silicon Valley can. She noted that the average annual starting salary in an advertising or media agency is between $25,000 and $28,000, while Google, Microsoft or management consulting firms pay between $70,000 and $90,000. The problem, according to her, is that clients keep squeezing fees. She asks marketers to stop this trend in order for agencies to have a better chance of competing in …

When it comes to climate change, our biggest problem isn't the science. It is ourselves. (Don't worry, I'll get to the online journalism shortly.)

I want to thank Nancy Hill of the 4A's and Bob Liodice of the ANA for examining the critical issues of talent, compensation and the media and advertising industry's slowness to change in back-to-back columns in The Wall Street Journal's "CMO Today" earlier this week. Each courageously went out on a limb, and our industry will be better for it.